The Awakening Storm
by helloprilly
Summary: The Doctor and Donna finally take Wilfred on that much promised trip in the Tardis, but the winds of prophecy are blowing through the universe stronger than ever. The pieces are falling into place but will the Doctor figure the puzzle out in time to save a race from extinction? Part 3 of the Phoenix Universe (Rating may change in later chapters) Not for Rose lovers
1. Chapter 1

_Author's note:_ _Please note that this story is not for Rose fans. So if you are one of those then I suggest that you move on to another story. This is a story that I've been wanting to tell almost since the start of She Burns but I knew that I couldn't fit it into that story arc due to it's large size. I've struggled with the beginning of this story because I do not like writing Rose at all, so I am trying to strike a balance with telling the story and writing a character that I dislike._

 _I hope that I have managed to strike a good balance here. There will be some preamble before we rejoin the Doctor and Donna on their adventures, but for now enjoy!_

* * *

Silence reigned throughout the void. The walls between universes thrummed with light and life even as delicate barriers kept the multiverse from destroying itself.

One such barrier shimmered with a patchwork of multicolored strands visible only to those terrible creatures that called the void home. Creatures that were sometimes glimpsed when beings would travel through the void in their attempt to breach the walls of reality.

These creatures would sometimes linger along the barriers looking into the universes of light, watching as the denizens of those realities fought and lived and died.

It was in a particular universe that a battle had just been won on a tiny, blue speck of a world. A world in a backwoods portion of a spiral galaxy that was indistinguishable from a billion other galaxies, and yet, time and fate seemed to warp around events on this world.

The barriers between universes began to flex as a madman in a different reality, prepared to rip the fabric of the multiverse to shreds.

The creatures of the void continued to watch the universes unfold, but they felt that the end was drawing near and so they waited for the fate that was fast becoming inevitable.

* * *

London was burning.

The Metacrisis Doctor stood atop the tower that served as the new home for Torchwood One, his eyes closed so that he could better shut out the sounds of sirens and the continued screams of the injured and dying.

He had been in Pete's world for a little over two years and in that time, he had quickly learned that while some things were the same as the primary universe, other things were completely different.

Earth had been the constant focus of attacks by Cybermen in those two years and the Council of Torchwood had been killed off one by one as the attacks continued. They had finally won what seemed to be the final battle against the Cybermen when they had discovered the nerve center of the aliens operation.

A team of twenty elite operatives infiltrated the network of tunnels that led to the nexus of their operation, but only one had emerged, screaming for everyone to run as the countdown to detonation reached zero.

The Metacrisis Doctor had been surprised to find a Jack Harkness in this reality just like in the primary universe, and like that original Jack, this one was also a former time agent from the future. His life had taken many similar turns as the original Jack's had, all the way down to trying to con another passing time agent with a Chula Ambulance. It was at that moment, that Jack's life had taken a dramatic shift. He had still taken on the alias of Jack Harkness, World War II hero, but he had chosen to leave the earth after he had successfully conned his fellow time Agent, John Hart.

Jack had been drawn back to earth several years earlier when Torchwood had been decimated in the first series of renewed Cybermen attacks, at time in which he sensed a power void that he could easily step into and thus con his way into a position of power on the planet.

The Metacrisis Doctor smiled as he remembered how Jack had changed in the last few years since he had met him; his trickster ways had quickly morphed into the same focused zeal for protecting humanity that his counterpart had exhibited. Jack rose naturally through the ranks and quickly became a confidante of Pete Tyler, the man who had been tapped as the next leader of Torchwood when the position would inevitably become available.

However, the arrival of Rose Tyler and the Metacrisis Doctor had had an unintended effect on this universe's timeline and Pete's destiny would soon be forever altered.

The Metacrisis Doctor heard footsteps behind him, his hand crumpling the piece of paper that he held in his hand which contained a portion of the list of the dead. Three names in particular had been seared into his memory, three names that rested amongst a hundred other names whose lives had been cut far too short.

He turned to face Jack Harkness as the man walked up beside him, his eyes not missing the wild, haunted look in the man's gaze before he turned back to stare into the blazing orb of the sun.

The two men stood together for a while in tense silence, watching as fires were slowly extinguished around the city and a ragged group of people gathered in the square below Torchwood One. Their cheers drifted up to the rooftop as finally the people of London began to believe that their terrible ordeal might, at long last, be at an end.

"It's done then?"

Jack Harkness took a deep breath, his gaze turning back to the Metacrisis Doctor before he muttered, "It's done, though I don't like the outcome. We kept coming back to you, even Pete wanted you to head Torchwood. But they chose me in the end."

The Metacrisis Doctor shook his head, his dark eyes flashing for just a moment with the fire for which he had been best known, before he turned to face Jack. "You know that I'd never accept the position, Jack. It's not that I don't want to take the responsibility for Torchwood, but I have never wanted to be a leader of any kind. I simply inspire people to reach deep within themselves to be truly great."

Jack snorted at his words, his head swinging around to pin the other man with an incredulous stare. "You really believe that drivel, don't you? You're the only reason we're still standing here today and aren't still wading through an endless army of Cybermen."

"It's only because I know the Cybermen, I've encountered them many times in the past." The Metacrisis Doctor grimaced at his own words, the memories of his progenitor were still vivid in his mind, memories that many times he forgot were not truly his own. "Or rather, the Doctor has encountered them many times in his travels."

Jack stepped closer to the Metacrisis Doctor, his hand rising to clap the younger man on the shoulder. "I've never met this Doctor that you keep talking about, but if he's even half the man that you are, then his universe is very lucky to have him. You'll always be the Doctor to me."

The Metacrisis Doctor smiled softly at Jack's words, his gaze drifting back to the setting sun before he whispered, "You may believe that I'm the Doctor, but not everyone feels the same way."

Jack grumbled under his breath, his hand dropping before he turned away and paced the edge of the rooftop in agitation. "Rose Tyler doesn't matter, Doc. She's ultimately the reason that Pete wasn't named Torchwood's Director."

The Metacrisis Doctor sighed softly at Jack's words, true though they were. He had sincerely hoped that Rose would have changed and possibly grown up during the last two years; but other than showing an alarming affinity for wielding the biggest weapons possible, she was still the same immature girl who had shown no remorse or compunction for having ripped a hole through the multiverses in her mad quest to be reunited with the Doctor.

He had decided to go along with the Doctor's madcap plan to send the two of them to Pete's world together, because the Doctor had truly been wracked with guilt over the direction that Rose's life had taken. He had mistaken the feelings that he had felt for Rose for some form of love and so had mistakenly thought that his duplicate would naturally have those same emotions. The Doctor had thought that he was being kind to Rose by leaving his duplicate with her so that she could have her happily ever after. It was something that he would never have been able to give to her.

They hadn't even made it off the beach before the truth had become painfully obvious. He wasn't a duplicate of the Doctor, at least not enough of a duplicate to satisfy Rose. He was a mixture of Donna Noble and the Doctor, an enigma that was brought into the universe in the midst of crisis and now was cast adrift in an alternate universe to find his way alone.

Rose had returned home and had instantly attempted to use the Dimension Canon once again to get back to the primary universe so that she could be reunited with the real Doctor. When Torchwood had intervened, and locked her out of the controls of the Dimension Cannon, she had begun demanding that her father let her have access to the controls once more. She felt that she didn't belong in this universe and that the Metacrisis Doctor was a fraud, one who wouldn't be able to help them in any meaningful way should there ever be a true emergency.

Her words had been proven false when the first Cybermen had attacked London and the Metacrisis Doctor had become an indispensable advisor on the defence and eventual defeat of the aliens. During the last two years, they had barely seen each other, though he had caught her several times trying to sneak back into the Dimension Cannon control room only to stomp back out screaming and hurling insults in every direction. She loved to call him a fake and a fraud, and she always made sure that there were as many people around as possible to hear her insults.

She was not well liked by the people of Torchwood, but more than anything her increasingly erratic behavior had begun to reflect poorly on Pete Tyler and his ability to remain objective in the light of his daughter's actions.

The Metacrisis Doctor shook himself from his morose musings, his hand rising to rub his forehead tiredly when he thought of everything that still had to be accomplished. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the rest of the council would hold Rose's actions against her father, I just hope that the council hasn't lost the support of a good man with its decision."

Jack crossed his arms over his chest, his brooding gaze slicing back to the Doctor when he thought back to the heated debate over who should be the next Director of Torchwood. "The council will listen to me in the end, Doc. Pete's still a trusted member of this organization and I won't allow his daughter's actions to overshadow all that he's contributed to its survival."

The Metacrisis Doctor left out a small sigh of relief when he heard Jack's words, though he had had a feeling that Jack wouldn't have let Pete unfairly bear the brunt of a daughter whom he had just discovered a few years earlier. He felt a pang of sorrow when he thought of Rose and how bitter she was with the direction her life had taken, how angry she had been when she had seen the companions that the Doctor had surrounded himself with since her departure. She had been especially angry with the place that Donna had taken at the Doctor's side and that her evolution into the DoctorDonna had given her a part of the Doctor that Rose had always insisted had belonged to her.

The Metacrisis Doctor struggled with guilt when he felt the silence in his mind, his connection with Donna had been forcibly severed not long after he had arrived in this alternate universe. It seemed that the Doctor had failed to find a way to stabilize Donna's mind and thus had resorted to completely burying her memories.

He had been struck unconscious when that had happened and so he hadn't even been able to do anything but mourn for the loss once he had regained consciousness. He remembered well how their telepathic connection had blazed aboard the crucible, his mind had been almost giddy in the embrace of the Doctor and Donna's minds. Their focused purpose had filled him with a sense of belonging that had since been missing from his life.

He found himself reaching into the void in his mind from time to time, hoping that something would reach back to him. He was, unfortunately, always met with silence.

"I have another question, Doc. One that I'm pretty sure you already know the answer to."

He turned back to see Jack looking up at him with an expression he had never seen on the man's face, it was a mixture of worry and hope that was almost painful to witness. He knew why Jack had been the only man to emerge from the Cybermen's tunnels, he'd had a feeling that Jack had suffered far more than any of them could imagine and it was only through a monumental force of will that he had continued to function until the crisis had finally ended.

"I know what you're going to ask, Jack."

"What the hell am I, Doc? What the hell happened to me? I remember dying in those tunnels, I remember the Cybermen swarming over all of us and the laser blast that killed me. I remember dying at least a dozen times before I was able to plant the charges and blow the place sky high. Am I going crazy? Have I finally cracked?"

The Metacrisis Doctor shook his head, his hand rising up to grasp Jack's shoulder in a firm grip so that he could force the man to meet his eyes. "You're not going insane, Jack. You did die, you most likely died more times than you can remember."

"You know what's happened to me, don't you?" Jack's voice was pleading, his eyes shining with barely restrained emotion as he struggled to understand the insanity that his life had become.

"In the universe that I came from, the Doctor travelled with Rose and that universe's Jack Harkness. They travelled together for a while before they ended up in the year 200,100. It was there that they uncovered a plan by the Daleks to enslave the human race and launch an offensive that would allow them to subjugate the entire universe. The Doctor knew that he would most likely be killed in the resulting battle and so he sent Rose back to her home in the past, where he instructed the Tardis to remain so that the Daleks wouldn't be able to use her for their own ends."

Jack listened intently as the Metacrisis Doctor continued, his curiosity was piqued as he listened to his counterpart's exploits in another reality. He felt his stomach sink with dread though when the other man continued, his words hammering into Jack's soul with ruthless precision as he realized that the life that he had hoped to lead was now forever altered.

"Rose didn't listen to the Doctor and because of that, she was somehow able to rip open the heart of the Tardis, taking its near limitless energy into herself. She used that energy to return to the future in time to save the Doctor, though Jack had already been killed by the Dalek's advance. She called herself the Bad Wolf and for a time, she had all the power of a god. She brought Jack back from the grave, but she couldn't control the power and so she brought him back forever."

Jack sat down hard on the rooftop, his mind spinning at the implication in those words. He looked back up at the Metacrisis Doctor, his mouth opening and closing while he tried to find a focus in the madness that was swirling within him. "But she brought that Jack back forever, what does that have to do with me?"

He couldn't stand the soft look of concern in the man's eyes, the intense gaze seemed to cut Jack to the quick and laid bare the terror that he could barely control.

"The Doctor didn't realize it at the time, but it looks like Rose brought every Jack back forever. She had the power to reach through the barriers between realities and it looks like she made sure that every single one of you that existed in any reality will never be able to die."

Jack clenched his teeth so hard he was afraid he was going to crack them, his nails dug so deeply into his palms that he felt them draw blood. "You're saying that I'm immortal then, Doc?"

The other man nodded. "I'm afraid so, Jack."

Jack shook his head, his eyes clenching tightly closed before he surged to his feet. He was suddenly filled with a burst of adrenaline, his angry steps carrying him to the edge of the building where he looked down on the crowd below before he turned back to the Metacrisis Doctor. "I can't comprehend this right now, Doc. It's too much, simply too much to take in all at once."

"I can understand that feeling, Jack. The Time Lords were used to near immortality, we were raised knowing that we would see millennia pass. It's not the same for humans, not by a long shot."

Jack's hands clenched and unclenched for a moment more, his wild gaze somewhat tempered when he heard the other man's words. It was with a supreme force of will that he forced the gibbering terror back into it's dark hiding place; he couldn't focus on those facts now, he still had too much to do to risk falling apart just when humanity needed him most. Later though, would be time enough for him the let the terror loose.

"I'd rather you not call me Doctor anymore, Jack. I no longer have any right to that name. I'd prefer a simpler name, one that doesn't have any connection to a legacy that's no longer mine."

Jack swallowed, thankful for the distraction of the request when he heard the other man's words, his gaze drifting down to the paper that had been crumpled in his hand before he nodded. "Have you decided on a name?"

The Metacrisis Doctor nodded, his hand tightening around the names of the dead before he muttered. "I'd like to be called Alec, Jack. Alec Noble. I think she would've liked that name."

"Who would've liked the name?"

Alec lifted his hand, fingers opening to hand the list of the dead to Jack so that he could see three names circled in red. Jack took a moment to read the names, Wilfred Mott, Sylvia Noble and Donna Noble.

"Who were these people, Alec?"

He sighed, surprised at the burn of tears for the deaths of people that he truthfully didn't even know. "In another reality, I would've considered Donna to be my mother."

Jack gasped at that realization, his hand tightening on the sheet of paper before he nodded curtly. "Alec Noble is a good name, and you're right. She would've been proud of the man that you've become."

He was surprised at the burst of emotion he felt for Alec when he saw the raw grief that flashed through the man's eyes, Alec's hands clenching for a moment before he nodded and turned to look out over the darkening city.

Jack and Alec stood in silence for a while longer as the last of the light faded away, the faint cries of celebration growing louder while the crowd below Torchwood One continued to grow.


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note: I am trying to write smaller chapters for this story than I had in She Burns as those larger chapters led to longer delays in posting time. These first two chapters were already "in the can" so to speak, which is why I was able to post them so quickly I am hoping to post a new chapter every 1-3 weeks at the longest, but RT will of course sometimes have an effect on this timeframe._

 _I hope that I can stick to this schedule pretty closely! As always, I love your comments and pm's, they're food for the soul!_

* * *

The halls of Torchwood One were once more filled with people going about their various routines as the world continued to rebuild after the Cyberman Wars.

Alec Noble smiled to people that he knew in passing as he made his way down to his lab in the basement, his hands clenched tightly in his pockets as he thought once more about how much Pete's world had changed in the years since he had come to this universe.

He had moved out of Pete Tyler's home shortly after Jack had been named the new Director of Torchwood and had rented a small flat by Torchwood One with money that he had been saving during the previous two years.

Pete had become something of a father figure for him over the years, but the continued strain of his botched relationship with Rose Tyler had been the final straw that had led to him striking out on his own. He could never thank Pete enough for all that he had done while he was struggling to find his place in the universe, a universe in which he had never been meant to exist.

He sighed when he came to a stop by the elevator, fidgeting slightly when he felt the considering stares of some of his colleagues as they bade him a good evening. He forced a smile onto his lips, raising his hand to wave good-night before the lift arrived and he was able to step into the relative safety of its confines.

He spent most of his nights at Torchwood now that the worst of the crisis had passed and the planet was slowly rebuilding itself from the ravages of war. He had been surprised how quickly humanity had banded together to help the countries that had been hit the hardest; supplies had flown in from every conceivable corner of the earth to help the British Isles rebuild as they had been the epicenter of the storm.

Alec leaned back against the wall of the elevator while it descended into the depths of the building, his eyes closing as he let out the breath that he hadn't realized he had been holding. It was sometimes hard to remember that he was only technically a few years old and that all the memories that continuously boiled within his mind were not his own.

He still had frenzied fever dreams some nights, dreams where he swore he could hear Donna screaming and begging to not be destroyed. Sometimes he dreamt of the madness of the Doctor as he ran through the universe, always running to try to escape from his many failures.

Alec shook his head to chase away the dark thoughts that would only send him into another bout of despair and tried to focus instead on the life that he had built at Torchwood. He was well liked within the Torchwood organization but he found that he never really fit in anywhere, he just couldn't seem to find any happiness with the mundane lives that they seemed content to lead now that they weren't in a struggle for their everyday lives.

The lift dinged softly when it arrived at its destination, the doors slid open to reveal a short corridor that ended in a single door. Alec sighed happily when he felt a warm presence that was pulsing just behind that door, a presence that seemed to press gently against the barriers in his mind before receding once more.

He reached into his pocket, fingering his key for a moment before he quickly unlocked the door and slipped inside. He quickly threw the latch before he turned around and looked out over the large lab space that spread before him.

There was a small unmade bed in the corner over which he had thrown several different shirts in the morning before he had hurried out to start his work upstairs for the day while a large duffel bag sat in one corner. There was a dual sink set into a counter along one wall on which rested a bag of toiletries and various other necessities as well as a kettle and several bowls and eating implements.

Alec leaned against the door, dropping his key into a small bowl set on a counter beside the door before he pushed off and quickly made his way to the large computer console that dominated one end of the room. He was excited to see how much progress had been made today while he had been away, concerned as he always was to be apart from his experiment for too long. The warm presence that was lurking just below the levels of his conscious mind were reassuring him that the long years that he had been waiting would finally be rewarded.

He had done everything exactly as Donna had suggested, he had cobbled together every system that he could from the innards of Torchwood as the building had been nearly broken during the war years in order to help speed his project to its desired end.

The small piece of Tardis that the Doctor had left with him had grown tremendously over the last few years, but it had yet to attain consciousness in any form. He smiled when he gazed at the growing Tardis before him, it was nearly half the size of its parent and was already starting to exhibit mechanical qualities as the coral shell was slowly melting into a metal casing.

"How was your day, Girl? I know it's getting harder to be separated every day, especially as you're approaching sentience, but one day you'll remember what it meant to have responsibilities and that unfortunately sometimes you can't let those responsibilities lapse."

He smiled softly to himself, certain that soon he would feel the connection with a Tardis again just as he had felt for so many years before. The emptiness in his mind since his connection with Donna had been severed was almost more than he could stand at times and he found that he pulled further and further into himself in order to compensate for that loss.

He just felt empty without the touch of another mind, he felt that there was a gaping hole in his psyche that no amount of laughter or friendship would ever fill. Jack really seemed to be the only person who bothered to take any time to get to know him and what made him tick, and so he hadn't argued when Alec had all but moved into his lab and left his flat vacant six nights a week.

He thought back to the early days of the war, the day that he had frantically hidden the Tardis fragment deep in the basement of Torchwood before he went out to see if there was anything he could to help. In the ensuing two years of battle, he had only been able to check on the fragment sporadically and make sure that she was still connected to the power grid and that she was able to draw as much power as she needed at any time.

It had been hard to hide some of the larger spikes as her size had doubled and then doubled again in rapid succession and he would often wonder if the presence of so much off world energy being present in the atmosphere had led to her growth accelerating even more quickly than Donna had predicted.

It was hard to believe that it had been nearly five years since he had first begun to incubate this piece of the Tardis, five years that he had toiled late into the night making sure that all the connections were secure and that she wanted for nothing.

He'd made sure to keep his lab locked at all times in order to keep prying eyes out and also to avoid any uncomfortable questions about just what it was that he was doing. Most people would never understand and would just chalk it up to another strange thing that he was obsessed about.

Rose had only shown minor interest in the beginning when he had first wired up the tiny shard, her eyes shining when she spoke of them traveling through the universe and possibly finding a way back to the primary universe before he had cut her off with a flat voice. The walls between realities were forever sealed and no amount of wishful thinking would ever change that. She was stuck here in Pete's world, with him and with her family and she had better find a way to come to terms with reality.

It had been those harsh words that had severed the last tie between the two of them and had set them on the course that they were now travelling, and it was her complete inability to accept that fact that had led to some of the more spectacular rows that they had had over the years.

He scrubbed his hands across his face, his eyes sliding tiredly closed for a moment before he shook his head and pushed off the computer console that he had been leaning against. He stepped around the controls and made his way over to the infant Tardis, his hands reaching out to lightly stroke the glowing coral where it seemed to be melting into metal sides.

When he settled into a cross legged position on the ground, the Tardis was taller than he was by nearly half a metre and he could tell that she would soon be growing once again.

"I miss the traveling so much sometimes." He grimaced before he corrected himself. "Well, I never did the traveling but I miss the wonder that he knew when he would step onto a new world. Just because I didn't live those memories, doesn't mean that I don't cherish every single experience that he ever experienced. I may not be the Doctor, but he IS me and sometimes I just wish that I could have had a chance to prove myself to him rather than be dumped into this reality without even a chance to show that I could change."

He leaned back against the warm coral, his head resting against the join between metal and coral as he stared broodingly at the information screen on the far wall. "I wasn't the only one who ever committed genocide and even then, he knew that the Daleks had to be destroyed. Donna had created the feedback mechanism, I just figured out the best way to use it in order to make sure that another Time War didn't rage across the universe."

This was an old argument that he had had with himself many times over the years, an argument that never seemed to resolve itself and only seemed to make the pit in his soul deeper with each passing day. Yes Donna had wired the mechanism for the Daleks destruction, but he was the one that had chosen to use it for the final end and because of that, he had doomed himself to the half-life that he now suffered.

He wasn't a Time Lord, nor was he completely human, but he was a cross between the species that didn't belong in either universe and like Donna, he was doomed to wander forever alone, screaming at the injustice of the universes while he just struggled to find his own place in that same universe.

Gods, he hated moping, and hated even more that there didn't seem to be anything that he could do to stop the downward spiral of his thoughts now that he was alone once again. The crazy days of the war had kept his mind occupied for the most part and had kept the worst of his self–recrimination at bay, but now with nothing but time on his hands he found his dour moods were significantly harder to control.

"Will it be as simple as getting off this planet and traveling again? Can it ever be that simple?" He toyed with the cuff of his long sleeved shirt, his fingers flicking a piece of thread that had worked its way loose in a bid to find some focus for his raging thoughts. "I sometimes wonder if it would have been better if the Doctor had just let me die, at least then I wouldn't be so alone."

There was a surge of warmth from behind him before an alarm blared on the computer console by the door, Alec looked sharply up from his morose ponderings and was just about to rise to his feet when he felt the wall shift behind him and he suddenly fell backwards into a portal that had just opened in the side of the Tardis.

Landing flat on his back, Alec oofed as his breath was momentarily driven from his lungs before he was able to focus on the sight in front of him. He was lying halfway in a large roughly circular space that stretched about five metres over his head. The walls were roughly hewn like the coral walls of the parent Tardis, but there were small rounded depressions set at regular intervals around the room. There was no equipment present in the space, merely a raised platform that looked like it was still in the process of being formed.

Alec rolled completely to his side in order to swing his feet in through the small opening that had appeared in the side of the Tardis before rising to his feet and running his fingers gently along the wall beside him. He shivered when he felt a warm tingle rise up his arm, light seemed to pulse gently beneath that touch before he very clearly felt a firm touch press for entrance into his mind.

Hardly able to breathe through the adrenaline that was suddenly pounding through his veins, Alec carefully relaxed the barriers in his mind, barriers that he hadn't even realized he had built over the years until this very moment when another presence asked for permission to enter.

It began as a warm sensation melting through the opening, the presence feeling more of instinct and curiosity then any real coherent thought before it finally completely connected with him. He gave a shout of joy when he felt the connection with that mind and suddenly knew that the Tardis had finally crossed over the threshold of sentience and had reached out to bond with him as her pilot.

The sensations were still new and fresh, the mind of a curious toddler that had just learned how to walk and was already trying to run. He could feel her sifting through his memories with near lightning speed, her thoughts driving him to distraction while he stumbled through the empty control room and up the few steps to sprawl on the platform while he let the Tardis dive into every corner of his mind so that she could learn the best ways to communicate with him.

He lost track of how much time he lay on that platform staring up at the gently glowing ceiling above him. His eyes would burn from time to time as the Tardis would touch on memories too painful to contemplate before she would move on to the next thing that caught her attention. He found that she was fascinated by the most mundane of things, while memories that had been shattering to him when they had occurred garnered barely a second glance.

She was learning fast though, faster than he had ever thought possible and already he could feel her presence growing, attaining a depth and vastness that surprised him as she soaked up all the knowledge that he still managed to retain in his limited human brain.

Alec felt tears streaming down the side of his face as the empty parts of his mind were suddenly filled to bursting with the inquisitive thoughts of the Tardis, her warmth filling the gaping hole that had been torn open when his connection with Donna had been forcibly severed. It would never be the same as the connection that he had shared with the Doctor and Donna, but finally, at long last, he wouldn't be alone.

There was a faint hesitation in his mind as it felt like the Tardis was trying out new pathways that had just been formed in the blink of an eye. Their bond was in its infancy and she was learning him faster than he had ever thought possible, he remembered vaguely the sense of wonder the Doctor had felt when he had first stepped aboard the Tardis all those centuries ago but he had never known the bonds of the Tardis from her infancy. In this, Alec knew that his experiences were completely new and wholly his own.

 _Hello._ Alec shivered when he very clearly heard the word whisper through his mind, the hesitation vanished when it seemed that single word caused the final pathways to fall into place and the Tardis' sensations suddenly exploded into fully formed thoughts and images.

He burst out laughing as the ship began to babble to him about space, time and infinite probability and how she couldn't wait to travel the universe with him and how she would always make sure to protect him no matter where or when they travelled.

Alec rose to his feet and slowly made his way back to the hatch that stood open in the wall of the Tardis, his hand clenched into a tight fist to contain the emotion that was threatening to choke him. He placed a loving hand on the wall, his eyes slid closed and he rested his head against the warm wall before he whispered softly in response.

"Hello, Girl, it's so good to hear from you again. You're going to be amazing and I can't wait to show you everything this universe has to offer. We're going to be brilliant!"

The warm burst of affection was nearly his undoing, causing Alec to slide down beside the open hatch so that he could let the Tardis continue to tell him of the dreams she had experienced before she really knew what it meant to dream. She told him of the feeling of safety she had always felt when he was near and how she had yearned for this moment when she could finally connect with him and let him know how happy she was that the Doctor had given her to him.

He felt the adrenaline finally begin to drain from his system and with the soft babbling of the Tardis fading back into bright impressions, he let the consciousness of the ship cradle his mind in her embrace while he let himself drift off into the first restful sleep that he had experienced in years.


	3. Chapter 3

Jack Harkness, Director of Torchwood, made his way down the stairs towards the basement of Torchwood One; the lights flickering continuously the further he descended into the bowels of the massive building.

Jack grimaced slightly as he rushed down the stairs, leaning over the railing to count the number of flights he had to descend before the lights failed completely once again. Jack grumbled as he reached into his pocket for a torch, finger clicking the light on so that he could continue his descent before the lights flared back to life once more.

The power in the building had been touchy for the last few weeks but the engineers had been able to reroute systems and usually the glitch would be corrected. The building had basically been rebuilt from the ground up after the Cybermen Wars, but good high-quality electrical cable had been in short supply. He scowled when he thought about pending projects that would shut down large sections of Torchwood at a time so that the building could be properly retrofitted in order to better handle the massive amounts of power that were associated with monitoring and using a temporal rift.

The last few days though something seemed to have changed, and even the best engineers in Torchwood couldn't figure out what was leading to the massive power drains that were now constantly overwhelming the system. Jack had wanted to ask Alec to look into the issues when he had come into work that morning as the man seemed to have an amazing affinity for circuits and wiring, but Alec hadn't shown up when he was supposed to and it was now well into the afternoon before Jack had been able to tear himself away and make his way down towards Alec's lab in the basement.

The fluctuating power meant that the elevators in the building were not the safest option if someone wanted to have any chance of a timely arrival at their destination and so Jack started the trek down fifty-one flights of stairs into the bowels of the building.

Something had changed with Alec about ten months earlier, it was like a switch had been flipped for the young man and his personality had suddenly begun to shine through for the first time since the end of the wars. He had become far more outgoing and gregarious and had engaged with his counterparts on a regular basis. Jack knew that he had let his flat outside Torchwood go and that he had moved into his lab full time around that time, but since the man had no family or ties outside of Torchwood, Jack hadn't objected to him taking residence full time in the bowels of the building. If it made Alec happy for the first time in years, then he was quite happy for him to live on site and it also meant that there was always someone nearby to monitor the rift for any unusual activity.

Alec's lab in the basement was shielded from the effects of the rift so many hundreds of feet below the actual interface of the rift with this reality, but he had wired his computer to continuously monitor the activity just in case something was missed. Alec had actually warned them a few times of impending spikes that otherwise would have been missed in the day to day rush of activities that seemed to increasingly fill all of their lives.

Finally arriving at the basement of the building, Jack paused for a moment to catch his breath, his finger clicking the torch off when it seemed like the power seemed to be stabilized for the time being. He pulled open the door from the stairwell and stepped into the small corridor that led towards Alec's lab.

There was a subdued roar of music from behind the door in front of him, a hum that rose and fell in some strange cadence before subsiding once more. It sounded almost like Alec was having a party in his little lab, which Jack knew was impossible since the man jealously guarded the privacy of his little domain.

Jack took his master key from his pocket, feeling a twinge of guilt as he was going to violate Alec's private space for the first time since the man had come to Torchwood. It's not that he was overly worried about Alec's health but the fact that he had missed the start of the day for the first time in years, definitely set Jack's nerves on edge.

Sliding the key into the lock and uncertain what would greet him on the other side, Jack turned the handle and stepped into bedlam.

The room was blazing with light that seemed to alternate at different times between red and blue hues as the computer consoles across the room had been cannibalized into a configuration that Jack had never seen before. Music seemed to be blasting from every corner of the room, a strange cacophony that seemed to be a mixture of some sort of classical piece and the screams of dying banshees.

Jack threw his hands over his ears in an attempt to block out the noise, his eyes watering from the bright lights that set off a pounding migraine.

"ALEC!"

He frowned when he saw a strange metal cylinder standing in the middle of the room, the object was roughly rounded with strange orange protrusions that somehow seemed to be a part of the overall surface of the object. The object was roughly three metres in diameter and about four metres in height, but there seemed to be no discernable marking on the object other than what he had already observed.

Jack reached for his sidearm as he continued to scan the room and could find no sign of Alec anywhere in the lab. He carefully cocked the weapon as he made his way further into the room, his eyes shifting constantly through the glare of the lights in case this object was of immediate threat to Torchwood and to the earth.

"Alec! I need you to answer me if you're able."

Jack jumped when a bright white line appeared along the side of the object in front of him, the line quickly spread until it took on a square shape and a portal seemed to open into the interior of the object.

Jack raised his weapon and focused his sight on the opening that suddenly appeared, his finger tensing on the trigger before he called out, "Whoever you are, come out slowly with your hands where I can see them!"

Jack waited tensely for any response to his order, his eyes trying desperately to focus through the strobing lights before Alec stepped out of the opening and looked at Jack with a puzzled frown.

Jack gaped when Alec appeared, his hands lowering in confusion as the man quickly made his way over to the console and tapped a series of buttons that instantly silenced the music and brought the lighting in the lab back to normal.

"What's wrong, Jack? Do you need me to come to work early for something?"

"Alec, it's 2:30 in the afternoon. You've missed nearly the entire day."

Alec's grimaced as he looked down at the computer console, his gaze growing distant before he mumbled, "I told her to remind me when it was time to go to work, she's usually very good about that."

"Who is, Alec? Who else is in here?" Jack shook his head, holstering his side arm before he pointed at the large metallic object sitting in the middle of the room. "Never mind that, what the hell is that thing and when were you going to tell me about it?"

The lights flickered fitfully for a moment in the lab before stabilizing once more and Alec looked sharply back at the object before speaking. "I told you to stop taking so much power during the daytime, Girl. You can't interrupt the operations of the building when so many people are here."

"What the hell are you talking about, Alec? Do you have anything to do with the power fluctuations the building has been experiencing? And who are you talking to?"

Alec nodded somewhat guiltily, his gaze darting back to the object before returning to Jack. "Remember I told you about that little experiment when I first came to this universe and that I needed to hide it in a safe place when the Cybermen first attacked?"

Jack nodded impatiently, his gaze bouncing between Alec and the computer console as he tried to make sense of the strange behavior that Alec was suddenly exhibiting. "Yes, I remember. You said you had a cutting from a Tardis, whatever that is and you even showed it to me. I'm sorry I never thought to ask how that experiment had survived the wars, but what does that have to do with this thing in your lab and the power fluctuations that we're experiencing right now?"

Alec ran his hand through his hair in a frustrated motion, his gaze suddenly hunted as he stepped closer to Jack and pointed to the object that dominated the space. "That is what happened to the small cutting that I showed you when I first arrived, that is what has evolved from that piece of Tardis that I was incubating and she is now nearing the point of flight worthiness."

Jack blinked stupidly at Alec, his gaze swinging back to the metal object, the cutting as Alec had described it and tried to reconcile the massive metallic object with the tiny piece of coral that Alec had cradled in his arms years earlier. "That's impossible, Alec. There is no way that thing could have grown out of the object that you showed me."

Alec grinned a cheshire cat grin, his entire demeanor changing to one of confident knowledge as he suddenly strode across the lab and placed one foot inside the darkened opening. "You're so certain of what is possible and impossible, Jack? You know that I have knowledge of things that I otherwise shouldn't have, why would this be any different? This is Time Lord technology, and I know that you don't quite know what that means because the Time Lords don't exist in this reality, but suffice it to say that they were masters of the impossible."

He reached a hand out to Jack, fingers beckoning for the immortal in a bid for the man to trust him even though he could tell that the world seemed to be tilting for him.

"I'll explain everything that's going on and why I had to keep her a secret until she was ready, Jack but please just trust that I would never do anything to harm you or the earth in any way."

It was those last words that persuaded Jack to take that first step towards Alec's outstretched hand before he stepped through the portal and into a different world.

Jack gaped when he stepped into the portal, his eyes widening as they scanned the vast, impossible space before him. It was huge, the walls were curved and sloped upwards to a domed ceiling that vaulted nearly five metres over his head. There were rounded depressions set in regular intervals along the walls, and an opening directly opposite from where he was standing that seemed to lead deeper into the space. Alec was standing atop a raised platform that had a railing surrounding it and was filled with monitors and levers and all sorts of devices that Jack couldn't begin to put a name on.

"It's…. It's bigger."

Jack shook his head, his mind refusing to accept what it was seeing and he very quickly ducked back out of the opening to stare wide eyed at the unassuming metal shape in front of him. He recognized the orange protrusions now as the same substance as the walls inside that impossible space seemed to be composed, but he still couldn't reconcile the difference as he walked around the object several times before poking his head back into the portal.

"How is this possible? How can it be bigger on the inside?"

He didn't miss the wistful smile on Alec's face at his question, his gaze dropping to the console with a frown before a spark flew from the wall and zapped Jack's hand. "Ouch! What in the world was that for?"

Alec tapped the console in response to Jack's question, his frowning countenance as he stared at the monitor in front of him changed when he turned back and made his way back to Jack's side. "You called her an it, the Tardis doesn't like to be referred to as a thing."

Jack shook his head, his hand rising to rub tiredly at his eyes before he asked, "She? Are you saying that all of this is alive?"

Alec grinned when he noticed how carefully Jack had worded his question so as not to offend the mysterious "she" that he had referred to, "Yes, Jack. This is a Tardis and she has been growing quite well in the years since we came to this reality. She's what I have been working on for all those sleepless nights and yes she is sentient as well. We're connected to each other, and she's finally ready for her first test flight."

Jack shook his head, his wild eyed gaze flying back to Alec before he muttered. "She can fly?"

"Oh yes! She can travel through all of time and space and in a much more comfortable manner than your vortex manipulator!"

Jack stumbled towards the railing that separated what he now knew to be a control console from the rest of the empty space, his eyes rising to the monitors that were flashing with strange circular symbols at regular intervals before he turned back to Alec with a note of accusation in his voice.

"Why didn't you tell me that you needed so much power? We've been chasing down power failure after power failure for weeks and now you tell me that you're responsible for all our problems?"

Alec had the grace to look chagrined at Jack's question, his gaze flicking accusingly to the monitors in front of Jack before he responded, "I didn't realize she was drawing as much power as she was and I had warned her to not do so during the daytime when the power was needed for the normal operation of Torchwood. However, she has grown tremendously in the last few weeks and so needed more and more power. I mistakenly thought that she would be able to draw on the power of the rift at this point, but it seems we're too far below the actual interface and so she needs to draw more on the traditional power grid than the limitless energy that bisects this building at the higher levels."

Jack frowned when he heard Alec's explanation, his mind already racing ahead to the question that he suddenly knew that Alec was going to ask. "You want to move this ship, don't you?"

Alec nodded before his head snapped back to the control console with a frown, his lips parting before he murmured "That's strange."

Jack straightened up, his body suddenly tensing when he heard the strange tone that had suddenly entered Alec's voice. "What is it? What's strange?"

Alec ignored Jack and swung under the railing to jump up on the control platform and swing a second monitor towards him. "She's just detected a huge spike in rift activity, but it's not the usual activity we see."

Jack jumped up beside Alec, his gaze darting over the unfamiliar gauges and monitors before he asked, "Something's coming through?"

Alec shook his head, his hands flying over the controls in front of him and sealing the portal that had opened before he responded, "No, it's different than that. It's almost like something is beginning to bleed through from another reality, and that can't be good news. Hang on, Jack. This is her first flight and it's liable to be bumpy."

Jack hated asking a million questions, but he truthfully felt like he was standing on shifting sands with the tide coming in. "Where are we going? What's going on, Alec?"

Alec ignored Jack as he threw several levers on the console and braced his legs widely apart before he threw one final lever home and a strange whooshing sound seemed to fill the cavernous space around them. Jack was thrown against the railing behind him, his back arching almost painfully over the metal bar before he was able to straighten himself and hold on for dear life.

Alec rode the waves of motion in the ship like an old sea hand, his one hand holding tightly to a bar that seemed to circle the control console while his other hand flew over various readouts and tapped commands that began to settle the rolling of the deck a moment before a sonorous bonging echoed through the space above his head.

"We're here, Jack. Time to see what's going on with the rift."

"Here? Where's here? What the hell is going on, Alec?"

He followed Alec towards the portal that reappeared in the wall of the ship, his eyes widening when he saw that they were now standing in the lab with the dimension cannon and that the ship had just travelled from the basement up to the fifty-first floor.

"How did we get up here?"

"I told you, Jack, she can travel through all of time and space. Walls and floors mean nothing to her."

Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying desperately to center himself so that he wouldn't be useless in what seemed to be a pending crisis.

"Doctor!"

Alec's head spun around at that cry, his hands clenching as he muttered, "Oh hell, what is she doing here?"

Jack followed Alec's gaze as Rose Tyler suddenly appeared in the doorway, her eyes were shining bright as she spotted Alec and she ran towards him with a near ecstatic smile on her face. "Doctor! I knew you'd come back."

Alec braced himself as Rose ran towards him, his dark eyes flashing sparks before he shouted, "The Doctor's not here, Rose. I don't know how many times I have to tell you that he is never coming for you and that the walls between realities are closed forever."

Rose stumbled to a confused stop, her gaze darting between Alec and Jack before it wandered around the room as if looking for something. "But I just heard the Tardis. He has to be here, I knew he would find a way back to me! Where's the Tardis?"

A muscle twitched in Alec's jaw when he saw Rose's gaze drift right over the Tardis standing behind them and move on as if the object was of no consequence. A flash of movement behind Rose caused Alec's gaze to rise up to see Pete Tyler follow his daughter into the lab, his hands clenched at his sides as he watched the spectacle in front of him.

Jack stepped away from Alec, making his way to Pete's side so that they could watch the confrontation between Alec and Rose from a safe distance.

"The Tardis is standing right behind you, Rose."

Rose glanced back to the metal cylinder behind Alec, her gaze dismissive before she turned back to Alec. "That's not a Tardis. Now stop lying to me and tell me where the Doctor is."

Alec threw his head back and laughed; laughed so hard his sides started to ache before he felt the sudden rise of a terrible anger that left him reeling as his mood swung from one dangerous extreme to another. "And you know exactly what every incarnation of a Tardis that ever existed looks like? You, a girl child from a backwards planet, think that you know everything there is to know about Time Lords and their technology?"

Rose blanched at the tone in the duplicate Doctor's voice before she felt a seething scorn flare to life, her hands clenched at her sides because she refused to call him by the name that he had chosen for himself years earlier. It was just another indication that the Doctor had made a mistake when he had trapped the two of them together and that he couldn't have known that the man he had stranded her with, was not the man that the Doctor had thought he was. If the Doctor had known how deranged his duplicate was, then he most certainly would not have trapped her with him in this universe. The man actually believed that he was Donna Noble's son, instead of just a poor copy of a truly great man. He even took on a name that perpetuated the lie so that people would accept him even though he was nothing but a fraud that tried to live on the great deeds that the Doctor had accomplished. She hated him, and hated that he had somehow poisoned Jack and her father against her so that she was barred from trying to use the dimension cannon to get back to where she belonged.

"I know what a Tardis looks and sounds like and that's all that matters. That thing is not a Tardis!"

"Well, I'm sorry to say that you're wrong, Rose. The Doctor didn't show you everything that you ever needed to know about himself, Gallifrey or Gallifreyan technology! He certainly never felt that he could trust you enough to show you some of the history rooms in the Tardis that would've given you a better understanding of his culture and his planet. Not after your escapades with Adam after you all escaped to the future all those years ago."

Rose stomped closer to the duplicate Doctor, feeling an overwhelming sense of outrage at his words before she yelled, "Stop acting like you know what he thought or felt! Stop pretending to be something you're not! You don't know what you're talking about, you have no idea what he would ever think or feel!"

"I AM HIM!" Alec screamed in response to Rose's words, the words leaving a taste of ashes in his mouth as he had tried so hard in the last years to build his own identity away from the legacy of a man that he knew he would never be able to truly live up to. "No matter how much you try to deny it, or refuse to see it, Rose, I AM THE DOCTOR. I have every memory, every emotion and every thought that the man ever felt tucked somewhere in this puny human brain and I know EXACTLY how he felt all the times that you ignored him or dragged some poor hapless soul along on some adventure. I know how he felt when you flirted with Jack and brought Mickey on board so that you could make him jealous of how you thought the Doctor felt about you. I know how he felt when you ignored him time and again and nearly destroyed reality for it, and if he actually knew what you have done to every single Jack across every reality, well I can say that he would definitely not be happy with you and might very well not be as forgiving as this universe's Jack has been."

Rose scoffed as she threw a glance back at Jack, her gaze slicing back to Alec before she retorted, "What does he have to be upset about? So I made them all immortal. What's the big deal; it must be nice to not have to worry about death."

Jack stepped forward at Rose's words, his hand grabbing Pete's arm to stop the man from storming to her side in anger. This was Alec's fight and truthfully, it had been looming for years. "Be quiet, Rose Tyler. I was willing to forgive your actions because you were supposedly under the influence of an alien power that filled you with the power of a god, don't make me regret that forgiveness."

Rose shook her head, her disbelieving gaze darting between Jack and her father before she muttered, "You're crazy, Jack. I gave you a blessing, you should be thankful for what I did to you. I knew when you told me what I had done, I remembered doing it and I remembered reaching through the barriers of reality in order to make sure none of you ever died. But I didn't remember until you had told me. I loved you all too much to risk losing you ever again, and if I had it to do again, I would in a heartbeat."

Alec's jaw dropped at Rose's words, his heart stuttering when he heard her words that she had a perfect memory of her actions as the Bad Wolf and felt absolutely no remorse for the suffering that she had inflicted on an untold number of innocent men. "Rose, you need to leave right now. You need to walk away before you say something that you will regret and that Pete can no longer protect you from."

She swung an angry gaze back to Alec, her stance shifting into one of obstinate refusal before she growled, "I have nothing to be protected from, you fraud. The only thing I regret is that I let the Doctor talk me into staying here in this reality with you. I don't belong here and you shouldn't even exist!"

She stormed around Alec's side, brushing off the hand that he reached out in order to stop her, before she stepped up to the side of the infant Tardis. Alec hesitated when he felt the curiosity in the back of his mind as the ship felt the approach of the angry human in front of her.

She had never felt anger before from any being, and this was a new and strange experience for her so Alec hesitated as Rose reached out to touch the coral that was still embedded in the side of the ship. The ship however was in tune enough with Alec's turbulent emotions that she wasn't willing to let the human actually touch her at this time.

A large spark leaped off the surface and connected with Rose's hand, enough to cause her blonde hair to stand nearly on end before it dissipated.

Rose shrieked at the pain that flashed through her hand, though it dissipated nearly instantaneously, her incredulous gaze swinging back to the duplicate Doctor before she shouted, "The Tardis would never do that to me! You're lying, you're lying about all of it!"

Alec sighed softly as he saw the denial in Rose's face, the fact that she would never accept a reality that didn't conform to what she felt it should be. He looked back to Pete and winced when he saw the look on the man's face as it seemed he had reached a decision where his daughter was concerned.

"You need to leave now, Rose. The Tardis will never welcome you like her parent did, she has too much of a recollection of what you did to her progenitor. Get out now with some of your dignity intact."

Rose stepped close to Alec's side, her sneering gaze sweeping from the tip of his spiky hair to the soles of his feet and coming back to rest on his smoldering dark eyes. She laughed up at him before she turned away and swept past her father, her hand raised in a mock salute to him before she called, "I'll find the Doctor yet, just you wait and see."

Pete watched as his daughter vanished into the hallway outside the main lab of Torchwood, his sorrowful gaze turning back to Jack before he muttered, "She can't keep on living like this, Jack. There has to be something I can do to help her regain some portion of her life back."

Alec crossed his arms over his chest, his body shaking with the unspent adrenaline that seemed to pound through his veins as he knew that the confrontation with Rose was far from over. She would come to realize that his little Tardis was indeed exactly what she needed in her mad quest to be reunited with the Doctor and he worried how quickly that time would come. He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he nearly missed Jack's reply to Pete's comment, "There is something to be done, but it's dangerous. I think though, that you can't wait any longer to make a decision. She does have the power through her access to Torchwood to endanger all of reality once more."

Alec sighed softly when he saw Pete's considering nod, his heart breaking when he thought of everything that Rose could have accomplished and had thrown away when she had set her eyes on the Doctor.


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Note: Many thanks to BMG and cassiekat for their tireless support as always! Alec truly has taken on a life of his own and I can't wait to take you with me on his continuing adventures._

* * *

Alec stepped away from Pete and Jack as they had their heads together in deep discussion, the dread was building in his heart when he felt the insistent prodding from the Tardis that something was going wrong with the rift.

Alec barely noticed when Pete nodded and hurried out of the lab, his hands were already flying over the controls of the rift monitoring equipment in order to fine tune the scans to the appropriate wavelength from which the disturbances seemed to originate. The readings were faint, but there was a definite surge of energy from a different reality that was beginning to resonate with the barriers in this universe.

"That's impossible." Alec frowned as the readings became more distinct.

"What's impossible, Alec? Do you recognize what the energy could be?"

Alec looked up at Jack's question, not at all surprised that the immortal had immediately come to his side when Pete had left the lab. He looked back to the readings as he thought about Jack's question and replied, "I'm not sure, Jack. Some things look familiar but I don't know how these readings could be possible, at least not without examining the energy further. There is a definite danger to our reality though."

A faint buzzing suddenly burst into life in the back of Alec's mind, it was a feeling so intense that it momentarily forced the presence of the Tardis from his mind before it faded once more. He looked around the lab, wondering what piece of equipment could have caused that buzzing, but nothing seemed out of place. The puzzle of the strange buzzing was pushed to the back of his thoughts when the energy suddenly spiked into another frequency where it began to ricochet through different realities.

"What in the world could that be, Alec? It looks like it's ripping through different levels of reality, could it be the Cybermen again? Or maybe these Daleks you mentioned?" Jack's eyes were glued to the monitors as Alec continued to fine tune the readings, his fingers tracing the edges of the energy signature that had appeared out of nowhere.

Alec shook his head, his thoughts becoming scattered as a blinding headache speared through his temple and caused his vision to blur into multiple after images before coalescing once more. He rubbed his forehead in a bid to bring focus to his thoughts, trying to force the pain back to the recesses of his head so that he could focus on the crisis that was fast approaching.

"The energy signature isn't right for it to be either Daleks or Cybermen, so thankfully we can rule those two threats out but it's resonating along a wavelength that I haven't seen in a long time." He paused thoughtfully before continuing. "It looks almost like Time Lord energy, but other than the primary universe, the Time Lords had postulated that there were no other realities in which they ever existed."

He gnawed thoughtfully on his lip as he watched the energy continuing to bounce through the deeper levels of reality, there was no way to tell what damage it was causing in those other realities and he couldn't really even get a solid lock on the energy signature before it would shift track and spear through a different reality.

The pain in his head was getting worse and he could hear a faint murmuring in his thoughts that was lingering just below the level of understanding. He tried to block the voices from his mind, too much was at stake for him to waste precious time or energy on flights of fancy.

"I thought you said that all the Time Lords, except the Doctor, were dead. I also thought that you said that the Doctor was a champion of all reality?"

There was no mistaking the faint tone of suspicion in Jack's voice and when Alec looked up to meet the man's gaze, he felt his heart constrict that Jack would think that he had lied to him. "The Doctor is a champion of all realities, Jack. It would take years upon years to tell you of all the times that he has saved reality at great cost to himself, but he unfortunately was not the only Time Lord that ever lived. There was another, but he had been killed and the Doctor had made sure that he burned his body so that he could never return. At least, he shouldn't have been able to return."

Alec refused to let his mind wander down that very dangerous line of thinking, his thoughts were swirling in a million different directions as he tried to make sense of the energy signature that would all too soon be ripping through their own reality. "Who was this other Time Lord, Alec and why do you think it could be him?"

Alec sighed softly, his hands rising to scrub tiredly at his face as he tried to focus through the pain that was pounding through his temples. "He was the greatest adversary of the Doctor, though they had grown up as childhood friends. Over the centuries that followed, they grew apart and the Master was…." Alec paused as he tried to find the right word to describe the insanity that had gripped the Master so early in their lives, the madness that had made him a renegade. "The Master was broken by events in his youth, the Doctor was never quite certain what had happened, but there was a test that all young Time Lords had to take in order to proceed with their training at the Time Lord academy. Those tests unfortunately drove some of the applicants insane. It was, however, an insanity that was usually not readily apparent until their first regeneration."

Jack listened to Alec's explanation, his mind trying to make sense of the completely alien concepts that Alec had described. He remembered his own training by the Time Agency and how brutal that had seemed to him at the time, but he had never feared that the training itself would drive him insane. No, that special privilege was reserved for the years of decay that time travel using a Vortex Manipulator could sometimes inflict on agents. He blew out a frustrated breath, forcing his thoughts back to the present and away from the life that he would never be able to call his own again.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Jack studied Alec intently, wanting with all his heart to believe that Alec was indeed telling the truth and that this Doctor that he claimed as his progenitor was not in fact a lunatic bent on the destruction of all realities. "If it is this Master that you mentioned, what's our best option?"

Alec shrugged, his gaze roaming around the lab and coming to rest on the dimension cannon for a moment before he dropped his head. "I honestly don't know yet, Jack. I need better readings though for starters."

Alec tried hard to conceal the wince as the pain continued to pound through his temples, it was a sharp, angry throb that was shredding what little control he had left and left his mind and thoughts reeling. It reminded him of the pain that he felt when the Doctor had suppressed Donna's memories and his link with them had been forcibly severed, but he knew that that was impossible because if Donna ever remembered him or the Doctor then she would burn to a crisp.

No, this was a new threat and one that seemed to bring with it an echo of Time Lord energy that was simply awakening parts of his mind that had been dormant for years. He was still more Time Lord then human and so he was more sensitive to time disturbances than most other people. He didn't like to reflect too often on the pain that he had sometimes endured during the Cybermen Wars, when they had tried to use the rift and other rifts around the world to spread into other realities. It had been that energy that had allowed Alec to pinpoint the nerve center of their operation so that the defense forces could focus their attack and finally bring the threat to an end.

"What's going on, Jack?"

Alec and Jack looked up at the sound of Pete's voice as he hurried back into the lab, his gaze drifting down to the displays that they were both studying so intently. "Why haven't the alarms sounded yet? Is there a danger?"

Alec straightened, his fingers deftly tapping several more commands into the controls before he nodded. "There is definitely a danger to this reality, Pete, but I don't know how soon it will arrive. The energy is still too far away for it to register on our instruments, but it is coming closer and frankly I don't know what it is or what we can do about it."

"I'll set the building to a code yellow alert status, so that everyone is ready for anything should the threat turn out to be a global threat. We can't be caught sitting on our heels when this thing arrives."

Pete nodded when he heard Jack's words, stepping aside when the man hurried from the lab and into his main office in order to send the orders down to his lieutenants. Torchwood was a well-oiled machine, but it needed the guidance of its director during times of crisis. Pete couldn't be more thankful that the council had chosen Jack for the thankless job all those years ago, and he found that he was quite happy as Jack's second. Never mind the danger that was associated with the job of Director, he was just happy that he was able to enjoy a moderately normal life with his wife, Jackie, during the slower times.

Pete frowned when he noticed Alec wincing and rubbing his forehead several times, a faint sheen of sweat seemed to have broken out over the man's brow and his face was flushed. "Alec? Alec, are you alright?"

Alec jerked when he heard Pete's question, his gaze rising quickly to meet Pete's before it darted back towards the strange object that occupied the other side of the lab. "I've suddenly got a pounding headache, it just started very recently and I'm not sure that it doesn't have something to do with what's going on with this energy surge."

"Do you need me to call for a medic, Alec?"

Alec shook his head, his hand flying to his temple as the room seemed to sway around him with the sudden motion. "No, I need all my faculties intact right now. I don't know what this energy wave is but I'm going to ask the Tardis to see if she has any ideas that might protect this reality when it arrives."

"I'm sorry, did you say that you were going to ask your…. Tardis?" Pete could barely hide the incredulity from his voice at Alec's words, he was wondering if he should call the medics despite Alec's assurances if he thought that he could actually get answers from an object that closely resembled a metal cylinder but otherwise didn't look like any great repository of knowledge.

Alec smiled wanly at Pete's question, not at all surprised at the look of confusion that crossed the man's face, he most likely would have been just as confused if he had been in a similar position to Pete. The Tardis was like nothing this reality had ever seen, and so it was no surprise that people would think that he was something of a madman to think that a supposedly inanimate object would be able to offer any guidance.

"She is sentient, Pete and even though she is still an infant in relative terms, she can touch all eleven dimensions simultaneously and she may have better readings of this energy surge than our primitive technology can detect."

Pete watched Alec turn without another word and slip into the opening that still stood open along the side of the object that was facing into the lab, vanishing into an object that looked barely big enough for him to be able to turn right around. He shook his head, no longer surprised by the strange things that Alec said or did and Rose's ramblings only seemed to validate the things that Alec seemed to take for granted but were fantastic for everyone else around him. He turned back and made his way to the monitors that were showing the progress of the strange energy wave, the surge was building in power and he could see that Alec was correct that it would hit their reality all too soon.

* * *

Alec sighed softly when he stepped into the confines of the Tardis and felt the stabbing pain fade to the back of his mind as the ship's temporal field enveloped him in its embrace.

"Alright, Girl, we've got to find out what's going on. Can you tell me if that really is Time Lord energy?"

He felt a wave of dismay radiate from the ship before he even made his way to the control console, the rapidly flashing symbols erased any hope that he had been mistaken. "Doctor, what the hell is going on?" He whispered the question into the quiet confines of the Tardis, knowing that it was ridiculous to hope for an answer from the Time Lord when he was trapped in another reality. Having uttered the question though made him feel a little better, he could at least pretend that he would receive an answer from the absent Time Lord.

It was definitely Time Lord energy ripping its way through realities, and there was only one other Time Lord that could possibly be responsible for such willful destruction. It seemed that the Master hadn't been killed after all, and the Doctor was most likely engaged in a battle not only for his life but for all realities.

The Tardis had scanned all the realities that the energy wave had intercepted and informed him that several of them had already begun to collapse as the wave had moved on while different realities were simply breached. These other realities seemed to be bleeding energy into the void but other than that damage, they seemed to be relatively stable.

"What if we were to project your temporal field into the rift, but sent it through the rift manipulator? Would we be able to strengthen the barrier of our reality to repulse this energy wave? Or at least lessen its impact?"

He could feel the thoughtful silence from the ship as she quickly calculated the modifications that would need to be made. She warned him that she was still too young to be able to project a very powerful temporal field and she would require extensive repairs afterwards, but she believed that the modifications would be enough to at least stop the energy wave from completely destroying their reality.

"I'll take care of you once the crisis is over, you don't have to worry about that. You're the only thing that would be able to survive a direct impact from this energy wave if it hit at just the wrong frequency; we've got to do everything that we can to protect this reality and the people that call it home. "

The Tardis gave her grudging approval of Alec's plan and showed him the modifications that needed to be made to her matrix. He ducked under the control console and popped open the panel that she directed him towards, her thoughts guiding his hands as surely as if she were making the changes herself.

They fell into an easy rhythm as he worked his way around the interior of the control room, popping different panels open and rewiring circuits before moving on to the next junction.

"Alec?"

He jerked when he heard Jack's voice, his thoughts were so enmeshed in the thoughts of the Tardis that he hadn't even heard the immortal enter the ship. Alec reached up to rub tiredly at the back of his neck, he had lost track of time as he sometimes tended to do when he was in the Tardis but he knew that the preparations would fast be reaching a frantic level back at Torchwood.

"How are the preparations going, Jack?"

"They're going fine, Alec, but if I understand these readouts after you tinkered with them, there isn't much we can do to protect ourselves?"

There was no mistaking the concern in Jack's voice as he searched Alec's gaze for answers, his shoulders were tense with the unfamiliar sensation of helplessness that threatened to overwhelm him. He hadn't felt this powerless since he had first discovered that he was immortal, and it was a feeling that he didn't like.

Alec winced, so subtly that if Jack hadn't been looking for any telltale sign of agitation, he would have missed the flicker before it vanished. "I've actually got a plan for that, Jack and the Tardis has agreed to help though she's going to need extensive repairs afterwards. I've just finished making modifications to her matrix in order to allow her to project her temporal field into the rift itself, since she has determined that the energy wave is indeed Time Lord energy. Her energy is compatible with that wave and may be enough to help lessen the impact with this reality and hopefully save it from being destroyed."

The color drained from Jack's face when he heard Alec's words, his gaze rising to the monitors that were filled with incomprehensible symbols in the hopes of different news. "Is the danger really that severe, Alec? If it's Time Lord energy, is it possible that this Doctor is trying to reach this reality like Rose thinks he is and that's what you're really detecting?"

Alec stopped dead at Jack's question, his gaze filled with an implacable knowledge that Jack could never hope to understand. He saw universes being born and dying in that gaze, before he was able to tear his eyes away. In that instance, he understood better than he ever had before that Alec was not of this universe and that he was not bound by the rules that they all seemed to be. He also finally understood what Alec meant when he had said he wasn't wholly human and that the man with whom he shared a history was a being of awesome purpose who would not be deterred from the path that he deemed right.

"The Doctor would never purposely breach the walls between realities simply to rescue an old companion, not when he explicitly stated that those walls could never be breached again without endangering the entire multiverse. Besides, the Doctor has no reason to come to this reality. He gave Rose to me after all, I was supposed to be enough for her."

Alec turned abruptly away from Jack's gaze, but not before Jack saw the bitter anger that the younger man was unable to hide. He knew all too well how Alec felt about Rose's bitter castigations and how angry he was at his progenitor for forcing him into this unintended hell. He didn't know everything that Alec was running from, but he knew enough to know that there were demons in the man's past that would drive lesser men insane.

Alec walked to the portal in the side of the Tardis, his hand reaching out to pat the wall tenderly for a moment before he stepped through the opening and back into the Torchwood lab. He stumbled when the pain returned with a vengeance, the whispering in the back of his mind exploding to the forefront of his consciousness before he very clearly heard a single voice cry out. _DOCTOR!_

Alec spun around at the sound of that voice, his eyes wild as he scanned the lab for any sign that he wasn't starting to lose his mind. Was he really so desperate for telepathic communication that he would just imagine hearing Donna's voice? His heart was racing with adrenaline because she had sounded so terrified in that single word, her voice had been filled with agony and the pain had echoed in sympathetic waves through Alec's own body.

He looked all around the lab, trying to see if there was anything that had been missed; it was not the first time that he cursed having lost his Time Lord vision when he had been separated from Donna and the Doctor though he knew that that vision would have faded with time as the Metacrisis had stabilized.

Pete stood by the control console, but he had been joined by several technicians that were making adjustments to the readings on the console but there were no other people in the lab. The rest of the equipment in the room was silent for the time being and there were no obvious ruptures in reality that could explain the voice that Alec was now positive that he had heard.

"Easy there, Alec. Are you sure you're up to this?" Jack caught Alec's elbow as he stumbled, his hand steadying the man as his panicked gaze began to dart around the room. He could feel the muscles in Alec's arm trembling violently, his steps faltered when his gaze fell on Pete and didn't discover anyone else in the lab. "What's wrong?"

Alec pulled his arm away from Jack's grip, his hands rising to grip his hair while he took several deep breaths to try to calm himself. "I heard her, Jack. I'm positive that I just heard her, and that can't be. She's been silent for years, she has to be silent otherwise the possibility is…"

Alec clenched his eyes closed, straining to focus through the pain that was pounding through his head, trying to reach back along that bond that had been silent for so many years. Something must have happened to make Donna remember enough to cry out to the Doctor, and now he feared that the pain he was feeling was actually her death throes. And there wasn't a damn thing that he could do about it.

"Who'd you hear, Alec? Come on, man, pull it together. You need to tell me what you know and how to protect this planet and all its people from what's coming. We need you, Alec. We need you more than we've probably ever needed you."

Jack's words seemed to have a calming effect on Alec, his wild-eyed gaze settled and the maddened grip that he had on his hair loosened before he straightened his shoulders and nodded in grim response to Jack's plea. "Quite right, Jack. There's nothing that I can do anyway if she's in trouble, so let's focus on the problem at hand."

Jack chose to ignore Alec's comment about the mysterious woman that he seemed to feel he was hearing, but he knew enough to know that Alec wasn't nearly as crazy as someone else might think him. He needed Alec to focus on the emergency at hand, afterwards would be enough time to ask him about what truly was going on.

They hurried across the lab and into an adjoining room to find that the rift manipulator was already pulsing with energy, enough energy that Jack was amazed that there wasn't already a hole through reality blazing in the other room. It was only a matter of time before the Dimension Cannon fired up as well, and Jack didn't even want to think about the problems that would bring.

Alec's fingers flew over the controls of the rift manipulator, he was far more comfortable with the alien technology than anyone in Torchwood and in just a few moments he stepped away from the device with a soft grunt. "There, that should be just what the Tardis needs to interface and hopefully it'll be enough to blunt the impact of the energy wave."

 _I'm coming for you, Donna!_

Alec's knees buckled when the Doctor's voice, his own voice, exploded through his head; the pain that he had been able to hold at bay suddenly leaped to the forefront and robbed him of breath as his entire body felt like it had exploded into burning fire.

"Oh god, Donna, no."

Jack rushed to Alec's side when he collapsed to his knees, Alec's hands rose to clutch his head before he let out a bloodcurdling scream. "Alec, what's wrong? Talk to me, man, what can I do? What the hell is going on?"

He reached out to touch Alec's arm and gasped when he felt the heat that was suddenly pouring off of his body. Alec was in real trouble and Jack didn't hesitate a moment before shouting for help. "Pete, get in here now! I need your help, Alec's in trouble. Get a damn medic up here before we lose him!"

Jack knew that with the fever that was suddenly raging in Alec's body that he was in very real danger of having a seizure or worse a stroke and that they needed to cool him off quickly, but he had no idea what had happened.

"Jack… "

Alec looked up at Jack, his entire body was shaking and he could barely find the strength to utter Jack's name through the screams that were pounding through his mind. The Doctor and Donna's voices were like cannon shots into the void and he knew that the walls between their realities were melting away and that they were in the midst of whatever had caused the energy wave that was even now barreling down on his own reality.

He clenched his eyes closed as another wave of searing agony washed over him, Donna's screams seemed to rise in counterpoint to the pain that was fast becoming unbearable and he knew that it was only a matter of time before he lost consciousness. He could see faint images strobing behind his closed eyelids; the Doctor standing resolute at the control console of the Tardis, Donna strapped to a strange table, screaming as she burned.

"What the hell, Alec?" Jack stepped back when a faint golden light began to dance along the skin of Alec's arm, it was thin wispy lines of energy that seemed to coalesce into a golden mist around Alec before vanishing once again. Jack was stunned when Alec looked up at him and the deep chocolate brown eyes that Jack had always secretly loved were burning with a brilliant golden light.

"He can't regenerate! The Doctor promised me that he wouldn't change. He can't change!"

Jack spun around as Alec collapsed onto his side on the floor of the Rift Manipulator lab, his wide eyed gaze taking in Rose as she stood in the doorway of the room with a look of pure terror on her face. Pete raced in behind Rose and tried to stop her, his hand rising to grab her arm in a bid to stop her headlong rush into the rift manipulator room. She cast such a glare of disgust over her shoulder that Pete was momentarily taken aback and loosened his grip enough that Rose was able to shrug off his restraining hand. Pete didn't notice the gun that she had strapped to her hip as she raced into the room and threw herself to the floor beside Alec. "You weren't supposed to change! He promised me that you wouldn't change, you can't change! You're all that I have left of him."

Alec shuddered when he heard Rose's words, his eyes widening before he managed to wrench himself away from her. His golden eyes narrowed in shocked dismay when he heard her words, before he growled, "You didn't want me before but now when I'm possibly dying or changing, NOW you don't want me to go? Just because you're going to lose your precious tie to this face that you're so besotted with? You don't even give a damn about me, you just care that I look like him! Get away from me, Rose!"

She reached out towards him, ignoring his angry voice as she repeated herself, "He said you didn't have the energy to regenerate, you were supposed to grow old with me if I wanted it."

Alec just shook his head even as he tried to struggle to his feet, his mind was reeling from the screams of Donna and the Doctor and he could barely focus through the terror that they were both feeling. "I'm sorry to disappoint you once again, Rose, but I don't think I'm regenerating. Donna's burning and I think I'm burning with her."

Rose frowned at his words, her head cocking before she pushed herself up to her feet so that she wouldn't be forced to look up at him from a position of weakness. She couldn't understand his obsession with Donna, or why he thought that Donna was his mother. He was the duplicate of the Doctor, the Doctor had assured her of that though he obviously hadn't known what he was talking about. It had been years since he had even mentioned Donna's name, Rose couldn't understand why he seemed to think she was suddenly dying now. "You'd told me when we first came back that Donna was going to die anyways, so what does it matter if she's dying now? It would've happened anyways and should have nothing to do with you."

Pete gasped when he heard Rose's callous words, his hand clenching around an object in his pocket when he realized that Rose truly was lost and that she only ever cared about herself and what she wanted from life. Her anger and bitterness over all the turns that her life had taken would never go away, and she would never learn her lesson or learn humility over her past enormous mistakes.

Pete sighed when he saw the disgust and anger on Alec's tormented face, the golden tears of fire that were leaking from his eyes were a disturbing counterpoint to the terrible rage that suddenly seemed to be enough for Alec to overcome the very real agony that was ravaging him.

"I can't believe that even you would be so selfish, Rose. Donna is the reason that you and I and Jack and Pete and every reality that ever was, still exists. Donna gave of herself completely so that we all would have a chance to live and the Doctor tried to do everything in his power to make sure that Donna survived long enough for him to figure out a way to fix the metacrisis."

"Why would he try to fix the metacrisis? It made her like him, that should be more than enough for her! She got everything she could've possibly wanted. A Time Lord brain, the Doctor… she got it all!"

Alec laughed, it was a mean and ugly laugh that he had no control over and it momentarily overwhelmed the fire that was fast consuming him. "You really have no clue do you, Rose? You haven't listened to anything I have told you over the past years have you? I'm the stable half of the metacrisis, Donna was not. She was the Doctor's best friend and he was devastated that she might die because of what the universe demanded of her."

Rose scowled at Alec's words, refusing to believe what Alec was saying but the chance was taken away from her when he growled, "Like it or not, I'm either dying or regenerating and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. So deal with it, or get the hell away from me!"

With that last comment, he stumbled away from Rose back into the main Torchwood lab, his body crashing into the doorway before he fell against the control console that showed the energy wave had nearly arrived. He looked up and threw his arms over his face as a blinding flash of light erupted from the far end of the lab.

There were confused shouts and cries of pain as people around the lab were blinded by the impact of the energy wave, but only Alec noticed the golden streamer of energy that erupted from the middle of the disturbance and slammed into the middle of his chest with the force of a freight train.

Jack had just been reaching for Alec, concerned with the anger that he had sensed dripping from his words, an anger that he could ill afford as his body was obviously in very real distress. As Alec stumbled against the control console, Jack's hand connected with his shoulder and the golden stream of energy arced between the two of them. Jack's body went ramrod straight, his eyes flaring wide and his mouth opening around a soundless scream as the energy sent them both flying through to air to slam against the wall behind the suddenly operational Dimension Cannon.

Alec strained to look at Jack, but he already knew that the impact had killed the immortal. The Time Lord energy would have a devastating effect on Jack's Artron fueled physiology and would most likely make this resurrection his most painful to date.

The energy built within Alec's body and he knew that it would suddenly make the impossible possible.

He barely noticed Rose pulling her gun on the technician that was standing by the controls of the Dimension Cannon, his eyes widening when she motioned for the confused man to unlock the controls. He couldn't shout a warning to Pete as the man was so focused on Alec and Jack that he failed to notice the actions of his daughter. He only hoped that Jack had locked the controls with impenetrable codes from the future, but that thought was suddenly the least of his worries.

Somehow, the energy that had been missing from him for his entire life was now filling his body to bursting and would allow him to assume the mantle of a Time Lord's legacy. Medics were rushing into the room and hurrying over to his and Jack's side, but there was nothing that they could do to halt the process once it had begun.

Alec surrendered himself to the burning fire and threw his head back to let out one final scream of agony before he collapsed to the ground surrounded by golden fire. He felt his entire body being remolded, the external energy was overpowering his own weak human systems and was taxing his heart to the breaking point.

He felt like he was teetering on the edge of a heart attack as his single heart raced dangerously fast in an attempt to keep up with a process that it was never meant to experience, his brain felt like it was too big for his skull and his eyesight had gone completely black.

He was thrown across the room as a surge of energy lifted his body and tossed it like a rag doll, his heart pounding so hard he felt like it was going to beat its way out of his chest. He felt his muscles and bones popping and cracking as they reshaped themselves, his human bones were far too fragile to contain the strength of a Time Lord and so he had to be shattered before he could be reborn. His lungs were struggling to catch a breath, the agony of breaking ribs was overwhelming and the pain was quickly driving him out of his mind. He cried out at a sudden constriction in his chest, a familiar echo fluttered on the right side of his chest before a stabbing pain erupted that quite literally stopped his heart.

It was a blessing when Alec finally lost consciousness as the regeneration energy stole away his human life.


	5. Chapter 5

_Author's Note: I just want to reiterate one more time that this story and most especially this chapter is NOT for Rose Lover's._

 _Many thanks to BMG and cassiekat for their thoughts and notes!_

* * *

The lab erupted into chaos as a rift in reality exploded into existence. Pete threw his arms up to protect his eyes, but he momentarily lost his vision in the blinding flash of light that accompanied the arrival of the energy wave.

He could hear alarms screaming in response to the energy that was buffeting against the barriers of their reality, but it seemed that the damage had been stopped right at the point of impact. He dared to raise his head, blinking hazy after images from his sight in order to see that the modifications that Alec had managed to enact had saved them.

Pete turned to look at Alec in order to congratulate him on managing to save them all just in the nick of time, but he felt his eyes widen in horror when he saw Alec was suddenly seized in a golden energy field. The man was frozen solid and his teeth bared around a rictus scream of pure agony before his body was lifted from its feet and thrown across the entire length of the lab to slam with bone shattering force against the wall. He cried out when he saw that Jack too had been ensnared by the same energy field that gripped Alec and it was only a moment later that he too went flying through the air to slam against the wall at Alec's side.

"ALEC! JACK!" He ran towards his superior and his friend, his hand stretched out towards them both in an attempt to render some sort of aid though he had no clue how he could help them. He flinched when he met Jack's gaze and saw the light fade from his pain ravaged eyes.

Pete rushed back to the controls of the dimensional interface controls, his hands flying over the keys with more instinct than skill as he tried to modify the energy from Alec's strange ship in order to try to block out this new energy that had had such a devastating effect on two of Torchwood's most trusted members.

"Sir, we can't reach them now. Every time we try to touch them, our hands are forced away from their bodies. It's like they're in some form of stasis field, but the field looks like it's killing them." The Chief medical officer, Thomas Higgs, had rushed straight to Jack and Alec's side as soon as he had come into the lab. He was a seasoned enough veteran with Torchwood that he barely paid the undulating rupture at the other end of the lab any notice. He was, however, at a loss as to how he could help two men who very obviously needed his help. He'd never seen anything like what was happening now, and he had no idea what shape the men would be in when and if the energy field released them.

Thomas could tell that the impact of whatever this energy was had just struck Jack dead, but he hoped that the man's strange ability that had manifested in the last few years would be able to save him from whatever was ravaging his body. He never trusted in anything that he didn't understand and Jack's strange immortality was something that, though documented, flew in the face of every bit of medical knowledge that he possessed. There was nothing that he could do for Jack and he knew that he would have to trust in whatever fate was listening, that Jack would once more beat the odds and come back to life.

Alec was the one that concerned Thomas the most. He was very obviously still alive while he was struggling madly in the embrace of whatever this energy was, and his screams of anguish were enough that Thomas knew his dreams would be haunted for many months or even years to come. However, it was what was going on inside the energy field that had him the most confused.

"Sir, something's happening to Alec, though I'm not quite sure how to describe it. It's almost like he's changing even as I'm watching, but that's impossible."

"It's not impossible. It's what Time Lords do, though he wasn't supposed to have the ability to do that."

Pete and Thomas swung around at the sound of Rose's voice, Pete's eyebrows climbing near to his hairline when he saw that she was standing over a technician with a gun pointed to the man's head as he worked frantically at a different computer that stood closer to the actual Dimension Cannon.

"Rose, what the hell are you doing?"

"I've got to get out of here, Pete. I don't belong here. Don't you get it? The Doctor did this so that I could come back to him; he knew that he shouldn't have left me trapped here with that… that fraud."

Pete shook his head, trying to make sense of Rose's reasoning as she stood poised with a gun over a man who was a colleague to her even while her supposed friends were dying or already dead. She looked at him through completely dead eyes, her gaze was devoid of any remorse and he had the sinking feeling that she would pull the trigger if she didn't get what she wanted.

"Alec told us that the Doctor would never endanger the multiverse just to get a lost companion back, he said that to even try could have irrevocable consequences."

Rose snorted when she heard Pete's words, her gaze traveling to Alec as he remained pinned against the far wall of the lab. She had the disturbing sensation that he was still conscious enough to be watching her, and though she could just begin to make out his features melting and reshaping in that strange and terrifying way that she had glimpsed aboard the Tardis what seemed like a lifetime ago, she knew that she couldn't wait a moment longer. She didn't care if she ripped the multiverse to shreds, she knew that the Doctor had sent this energy wave so that she could find her way back to him and she would be damned if she would let some man who wasn't even her father stop her from getting back to the Doctor.

"Alec doesn't know even half of what he pretends to know. I wasn't just making things up when I was calling him a fake and a fraud. He's really a fraud; he pretended to be a Time Lord when he wasn't even half the man that he thought he was. He's a freak, borne of an accident during a crisis and he should've been left to die with the Daleks that he slaughtered."

The technician that Rose had her gun trained on, lowered his head as he continued to punch commands into the control console, his body tense before he gave up and turned back towards her. "I can't unlock the controls, Ma'am. They're password protected with an algorithm I've never seen before."

Rose snarled down at the terrified technician, her finger tightening on the trigger of the gun before she gruffly motioned him away and turned to point the gun directly at Pete's face. "You know the codes, don't you? Jack would've trusted you with the algorithms."

Pete reared back in shock when he saw Rose swing the gun towards him, his hand flying to his chest to still the pounding of his heart before he whispered. "You wouldn't dare. Jackie would never forgive you. You do this and she'll hunt you down herself."

Rose laughed cruelly at Pete's words, her eyes darting towards the far wall where she could see Alec seemed to have finally fallen to the ground. She couldn't wait any longer because something told her that whatever was happening to Alec wouldn't incapacitate him for long and he would do everything that he could to stop her from getting back to the Doctor.

"Mom doesn't care about me anymore, not since Tony came along. She's too caught up in trying to live happily ever after with you since she came here. I'm not going to settle for a fake life, this isn't where I belong and if the Doctor really knew what was going on here with you and with Alec then he never would've made me stay behind. Now give me the codes!"

Pete raised his hands, his throat clenching when he realized the girl that he had tried to call his own, turn her back completely on him and everything that he had ever hoped to offer her. He saw in that instant that she had never accepted him as her father and she had only used him to get into Torchwood so that she could get close enough to the Dimension Cannon to try to escape back to her precious Doctor.

Pete remembered meeting the man, after he had brought the other universe's Jackie back in order to try to fill the hole in his heart after the Cybermen had taken his first wife. He had seemed to be a man of honor, a man that would do everything in his power to make sure that he and his companions did the right thing. He couldn't have known what had happened to Rose in the intervening years, nor could he have known just how obsessed she had become by the very idea of the Doctor. He thought long and hard on the man that he had sensed when he had met the Doctor, a man that had been more than affirmed when Alec had been left behind on that desolate beach all those years ago.

Pete remembered what the Doctor had said and he made his decision. "I wouldn't give you the codes even if I could, Rose. Jack locked the codes to an algorithm only he would be able to decipher because he always worried that you'd get desperate enough to try something like this. I never believed him or Alec, but it looks like they were both right."

Rose's hand twitched, ever so slightly when she heard Pete's denial, her eyes widening in incredulous disbelief before she took a step closer to him. She kept seeing his face, the same face that she had seen all those years ago when the Doctor had taken her to see her father on the day of his death. She had been distraught with the Doctor even then; that he wouldn't allow her to save her father even though she had seen what had happened when she had helped him sidestep fate. She didn't understand why the Doctor was forever changing history and bringing back people who had died all the time but when it mattered the most to her, he refused to be budged. It had been one of the things that had led to some of her more outrageous behavior in retaliation for the perceived betrayal, never mind the fact that he seemed to have moved on without a thought when he'd trapped her in the alternate universe.

"I'll do it, Pete. I know you have to have a failsafe to override Jack's codes; I can't stay here any longer. I don't belong here, and the Doctor needs me!"

Pete didn't miss the fact that Rose refused to name him as her parent and he merely shook his head before he spread his arms wide. "Then do it, Rose, and stop talking about it."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Rose. There're too many people in this laboratory that'd be all over you before you got a step closer to the vault where the dimension jumpers are stored."

Rose gasped and spun around at the tired voice that suddenly sounded from the other side of the lab. Jack was just forcing himself to his feet, his complexion was ashen and his eyes were sunken into deep, bruised pockets but he was standing and once again, he was miraculously alive.

Rose didn't even notice Thomas, the medic, scrambling back from Jack as the Director forced himself to his feet, the medic's useless equipment falling from his hands so that he could watch Jack stumble towards Rose.

"I'm the only one that can decipher those codes and you know me well enough to know that I'd never build in a failsafe. I'd rather the Dimension Cannon rust into a useless piece of trash before it was ever used to endanger the multiverse again."

Rose regained enough of herself to swing the gun towards Jack; her eyes were swimming pools of rage as her finger tensed against the trigger. "What did he tell you to turn you all against me? I just want to get back to where I belong! Why is that so hard to understand?"

"You belong here with your family, Rose. The Doctor said that you were dead in that other reality. Rose Tyler, a casualty of the Battle of Canary Wharf. That's why you couldn't make a life there, that's why he left you here to try to rebuild with the only family you have left." Pete tried to plead with Rose one last time; his heart was breaking when he thought of what Jackie would do if she found out that Rose had killed him. He thought of the heartbreak that Jackie would endure even though she had given so much to try to give Rose a better life once they had made their way to this universe, but it had never been enough for her and he had been too blind to see it.

"You're lying! All of you are lying and just trying to keep me from the Doctor. I love him and I know that he loves me; it's why he sent this energy wave so that I could find my way back to him. Stop standing in my way!"

Jack took a faltering step closer to Rose, his eyes never leaving the barrel of the gun that was pointing at him even though he knew that the death would never stick. He hated dying and usually tried to do everything in his power to avoid it, but he would happily take the bullet to save Pete's life. "You know we're not lying, you know that we're telling the truth because Alec and Pete were there with you that day when you were left behind. You don't belong in that universe anymore and the Doctor has moved on without you."

Rose shrieked with an inhuman sound of rage, tears streamed down her cheeks while she looked Jack straight in the eye and pulled the trigger.

He didn't know who was more surprised that she'd actually managed to get the shot off, but in the end he only jerked when the bullet struck him right between the eyes. The last thing that he saw was Rose being tackled to the ground by her father and then the world went mercifully black.

* * *

Alec was swimming in a sea of fire. He had long since lost track of his body and found that he was simply floating shapeless through a place that he hadn't visited since his link with Donna had been forcibly severed.

He felt the universe throbbing around him in strange ways, the lines of force were radiating out from his essence to pierce the void and part the darkness that had settled around his soul.

 _My Lord Doctor, come to join us in our moment of triumph?_

His entire being shuddered when that much hated voice echoed through the shapeless place, the words dripping with all the scorn that only Rassilon was ever able to impart. He fought against the panic that rose while he tried to find the thread back to his body, his mind whirling with all the possibilities that couldn't even begin to explain how he was hearing the Lord President's voice.

He was flailing about in that sea of agony, long dead instincts flaring to life when he felt the Time Lord senses that he had truly never known rise from the depths of his unconscious mind. Though he was not born a Time Lord, his legacy was that of the oldest race in the universe and he would be damned if he would let the universe fall to dust while there was anything that he could do about it.

 _If the Timelock's broken, then everything is coming through!_

Alec's mind stopped dead when he heard the Doctor's voice, his thoughts whiting out for a split second while he thought about the ramifications of the Doctor's worse. The Timelock couldn't be broken, it was supposed to be unbreakable. But beyond that, the Timelock was supposed to keep all the horrors of the Time War locked away. It was supposed to keep the universe, indeed all of time, from burning to cinders.

What had happened? How had the Timelock been broken? Never mind that, it would explain the energy wave that had been destroying reality after reality but what else had happened? What else was his thick human brain missing?

 _Keep your head on straight, Spaceman, and focus!_

Donna's beloved voice echoed through the void, the words striking a painful chord deep within him when he remembered how she had snapped and called him Spaceman when he had first appeared aboard the Tardis. Gods, the embrace of her mind had been glorious and he found himself hesitating in the void for a moment just to feel its welcome touch once more.

 _We will initiate the Final Sanction! The end of time will come at my hand. The rupture will continue until it rips the Time Vortex apart!_

Alec fled the void when he heard Rassilon's words, his mind was spinning with terrifying possibilities as he heard Rassilon's promise to the Doctor. He found the Doctor's memories of the end of the Time War rising unbidden from the place that he had hidden them, the memories of a different life and a different man who had lived through the horror that had engulfed the universe.

Rassilon had indeed had the power to destroy all of creation with the Final Sanction and not just his reality, but every reality that existed throughout the multiverse. He was quite as mad as the Daleks had been at the end of the war and now he knew without a doubt that he had to get back to the primary universe in order to help the Doctor stand strong against this terrible threat.

He followed half-buried instincts as they guided him towards his body, the body that was still wracked with the ravages of an impossible regeneration, and he didn't hesitate to let his mind rejoin with that shell.

The pain that exploded through his awareness nearly drove him straight back into unconsciousness, but he fought through the red haze that seemed to be all that he knew and struggled to bring himself back to reality.

He blinked open new eyes, his vision narrowing down to a single point of focus as Rose stood poised with a gun pointed straight at Jack's forehead. He shook his head, gasping softly when he suddenly saw endless lines of probability spread off of each person standing in the room, but it was the wildly chaotic dance of chance around Jack that convinced him that he wasn't seeing things.

Alec tried to struggle to his feet, grunting when his legs didn't want to work properly. He fell forward, not at all surprised when he looked down at strange hands that were at one time similar to the hands that he had gotten so used to, but were definitely not the same. Red hair dusted the back of his wrists and he could just see the line of hair running up his arm into the t-shirt that he had donned that morning. "Ginger?" His voice came out barely a croak, though he felt a shivering sense of inappropriate excitement flare through him at the thought.

He fell forward onto his face, his hands not rising to catch him fast enough so that he managed to smack his forehead onto the cold floor of the lab. Alec groaned at the impact that left his ears ringing and his vision swimming, his entire body was quivering uncontrollably as he desperately tried to gain control of muscles he no longer knew how to use.

Alec felt hesitant hands reach out to grab him, the touch was trembling with uncertainty and the instant that they connected with his arm he felt the absolute terror that was filling the mind of the person who was trying to help him.

He turned a bleary eye up at the medic that leaned over him, the man's eyes were wide with panic but he was well trained enough to know when someone needed his help.

Thomas looked down at the man on the floor, unable to believe what his eyes were seeing. If he hadn't seen Alec fall from where he had been pinned against the wall and huddle into a ball on the floor, then he wouldn't have believed that somehow Alec hadn't changed positions with whoever this stranger was that was now looking up at him through a wild shock of red hair and blazing blue eyes.

"Sir?"

Alec grunted as he forced his hands under his face, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees before he took the medic's offered hand. "Yes, Thomas, it's me." His voice was thread, his vocal chords just now remembering how to function but barely forming the words before he felt his chest constrict in a painful reminder of the ordeal that he was still experiencing. He couldn't draw up any more energy as he took brief stock of the new body that he now wore.

He ran his hand up his chest, laughing weakly when he felt the reassuring thud of a second heart under his right hand before he remembered what had caused him to try to move so quickly. He turned to look at Rose just as she pulled the trigger and Jack fell dead with a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.

"NO!"

Alec didn't know where the burst of adrenaline came from when he saw Rose's terrified eyes whip over to him as his eyes focused on her, she shrieked when she saw the changes that had been wrought on his body but the cry was cut short when she was tackled by her father.

Alec stumbled over his own two feet when he tried to run Jack's side, his body felt too fast and too strong to control and he knew that it would take awhile for him to get used to having a Time Lord's strength and agility again. "Come on, Jack. I need you to come back quickly this time, I need your help before the fissure closes and it's too late!" Alec started when he heard his own voice; the soft lilt to his words was an unexpected surprise even as he pleaded with Jack to come back from death more quickly.

He didn't have time to take stock of the changes in his body though as Rose was crying out incoherently to him. Her eyes were pleading with him to help her even as her father had her pinned to the floor and another technician was helping him wrench her arms behind her back so that they could cuff her. Alec pursed his lips when he saw those tear drenched eyes, his heart clenching for a brief moment when he thought of all the amazing adventures that she had shared with the Doctor and the very real friendship that the Doctor had shared with her. The Time Lord had never meant to lead her on, though his own inability to understand his emotions had led the both of them down a path that unfortunately had led to this very moment.

He pushed himself to his feet, his steps halting when he made his way to her side and looked down at her with only pity welling up from somewhere deep within him. "You could've been so much, Rose. He had such high hopes for you, and you've done nothing but threaten the multiverse time and again. You never learned any of the lessons that he was trying to teach you and you never cared about the effects your actions had on others."

She raised bleary eyes up to him, unable to believe that the red headed man that was towering over her was still the same man that had been stranded in this reality with her. When had she been so wrong? What did she do to turn them all against her? All she wanted was to have her life aboard the Tardis back, why was that such a bad thing? Why did everyone try to keep her from the Doctor and why did the Doctor think that she would ever be happy with a mere copy of him? She looked deep into those blue eyes trying to ignore the strange face that was staring back at her, but there was no mistaking the stunning resemblance that it bore to Donna Noble. She shook her head as best as she could, her eyes clenching closed because she refused to believe that he had been in any way tied to Donna. He had been promised to her, the Doctor had promised her that he would live with her and grow old with her. What had happened there? Why couldn't he just be like the Doctor like he was supposed to? "I just want to go home. I want to go back to the Tardis."

Alec looked down at her, sighing softly when he very distinctly saw two possible futures flare into being around her. In one she was able to live a somewhat normal life, happy with her family here in Pete's world. In the other, he saw only death and destruction; not only to herself, but to the entire multiverse as she would never give up her mad quest to regain her supposed place at the Doctor's side.

He very clearly saw the choice that was looming in front of him and knew that he had to be the one to finally set things right. Maybe this was really the reason that the Doctor had trapped him in this purgatory? Maybe this was why the DoctorDonna had allowed the Doctor to leave her perceived son trapped with a woman who would never accept him as she had claimed she would. Maybe the DoctorDonna had seen this future and had known that only Alec would be able to be the one to set things right.

He knelt down in front of Rose, his gaze turning to Pete for a moment for confirmation when the older man nodded in tired acknowledgement before Alec raised his hands to the touch points on Rose's face.

Rose tried to pull away from the touch of his fingers, she knew what his fingers in that position meant and struggled madly against her father's restraints even as he pressed his fingers to her temples and jawline. Her eyes were forced against her will to meet his icy blue gaze, the fires of time were burning in those depths and she knew that there was nothing she could do to stop him.

He was no longer the duplicate. He was no longer the weak copy of a truly great man. He was a Time Lord in all his raging power, and he was truly borne from the Doctor's legacy. He would do whatever he felt he had to in order to set things right, and Rose knew that her time had finally come to a close.

She whimpered into the sudden silence, tears streaming down her cheeks as she whispered brokenly. "I loved him."

Alec nodded softly, whispering in acknowledgement. "I know you think you did, Rose. But that wasn't love, and you'd never be able to live a normal life as long as you remembered. I'm sorry."

Alec closed his eyes and sent his thoughts winging into Rose's mind, his fledgling Time Lord senses responding to the centuries of memories that suddenly filled him to bursting when he finally allowed all of the Doctor's memories to break free from their hiding place. Everything that the Doctor had ever known suddenly filled his mind and he knew exactly what he had to do in order to at long last set things right.

Carefully reaching into Rose's mind, he started to remove her memories of her time with the Doctor. One by one, he lifted each gossamer strand free from her mind while she screamed and railed against him. She jerked against her father's hold, the tears streaming down her cheeks when she felt her life for the past eleven years flash before her eyes before each memory vanished like it had never been.

She saw the tears streaming down Alec's cheeks as he delved deeper and deeper into her mind, his mind relentlessly rooting out every secret hope and dark fantasy that even she had forgotten she possessed until finally he broke the contact and leaned back from her with a tired grunt.

He sadly watched Rose look up at him with uncomprehending eyes, the spark of recognition had fled her gaze and she whimpered softly once before she slumped against her father in unconsciousness.

He raised a shaking hand to his forehead, his haunted eyes rising to meet Pete's own tormented gaze while he struggled to find the strength to answer Pete's unspoken question.

"It's done, Pete. I did what I had to do in order to protect the multiverse. I'm so sorry that it had to be this way. I wish that things could've been different."

Pete nodded softly to Alec, his hold on Rose's arms relaxing so that he could reach out and grasp the other man's arm in a gesture of gratitude. "You did what you had to do, Alec. Thank you for sparing me from having to make that decision myself. I guess it's up to us to help her pick up the pieces." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the syringe of the new experimental retcon, his fingers closing tight around the object before he sighed and stuffed it back into his pocket.

Alec nodded numbly, his gaze dropping to Pete's hand where it had gripped his arm before he sighed. "The retcon would've never worked, Pete. Her memories were too entwined with who she was and who she struggled to be. She saw only what she wanted and because of that, those memories would have bubbled to the surface again and again no matter what you did." He let his head fall back, his eyes sliding closed when he felt the bone numbing exhaustion that accompanied regeneration nearly drive him under. "I just wish there had been another way."

He sat back hard when the strength suddenly drained from his body, his eyes rising to the tear in reality that was even now beginning to fluctuate wildly, but without Jack's help he knew that he would never be able to get his little Tardis to survive the crossing to the primary universe.

Alec crawled away from Pete towards Jack's still body, barely aware of the medic rushing past him so that he could examine Rose now that she had lost consciousness. He wasn't at all surprised that everyone in the lab kept their distance from him; their wild eyed gazes would skitter away from his as soon as he noticed that they were staring at him. They didn't recognize him and they were suddenly aware that he had powers that none of them had ever experienced or expected. They didn't know what he had done to Rose, but they were all too frightened to risk coming any closer than they had to.

Alec settled cross legged next to Jack, dropping his head against his upraised knees so that he could clench his eyes closed in a bid to process the chaos that raged all around him. He had lamented the loss of a Time Lord's sight; and now that it had returned, he found that he was completely unprepared to deal with the consequences of the knowledge that it imparted.

So Alec chose to wait in silence for a breath of life from the body beside him that would hopefully allow him to return to where he belonged.


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: I must apologize for the absolutely dreadful delay in updating this story. I can hardly believe that it has been 8 months since I have been able to return to this world. I always knew that this chapter was going to be a hard chapter to write, but I never expected to get hit with such a terrible case of writer's block when I was asked a simple question by someone who had read the previous chapter and wanted to know about the consequences of Alec's actions in the previous chapter. A simple question that made my muse slam into a brick wall at 90 miles an hour. Then came Christmas and then the new year and it has only been in recent weeks that I have felt the characters begin to speak to me again with a solution to my dilemma. Now that this difficult chapter is behind me, I hope to be back to a semi-regular schedule of updating this story.

As always, I have to thank the wonderful and tireless BMG for instantly reading my chapter when I send it to her even though it meant having to go back and reread the first five chapters to remember where we were!

I'm so happy to be back, and hope that you all will forgive me for the 8 month hiatus. I hope you enjoy this next installment.

* * *

The Doctor and Donna's screams had faded to faint murmurs in the back of Alec's mind, but he could tell by the still wildly fluctuating energy field at the end of the lab that the battle was still raging in a distant reality.

Alec tried to still the hammering of his double hearts as he struggled to find order in the chaos that was even now threatening to overwhelm him. His mind was swimming with all the memories that he had been forced to remove from Rose's mind, his still very human emotions were painfully conflicted with the finality of his actions.

He had effectively killed Rose Tyler and he knew that he would have to leave it up to Jackie and Pete to help her rebuild her life in a strange world that she truly should have never known. It was a strange feeling, knowing that he was now essentially a cold blooded killer, but he knew that the Doctor would have never been able to separate himself enough from his memories of Rose to be the one to make sure she was never a danger to the multiverse again.

Alec jumped when he felt a hand drop onto his shoulder, his head jerking up and his vision swimming for a moment with time's infinite dance before he was able to focus on Pete's tear streaked face as he stood by Alec's side.

"What did you do, Alec? At least with the retcon, we could've controlled the damage."

Alec grimaced at Pete's direct question, his eyes darting to Rose as she was being carefully lifted onto the stretcher in preparation for transport. "I already told you that the retcon would've never worked, her memories were too ingrained in everything that she had become. I had to completely erase the last eleven years of her life. I had to remove every memory that she ever had of the Doctor and any of her adventures with him. It was the only way to make sure that she didn't remember enough to become a threat to the multiverse again." He clenched his eyes closed when he saw the new timelines dancing around Rose, the grim future that he had glimpsed seemed to have been averted, at least for the time being.

Pete's hand tightened on Alec's shoulder, his eyes widening when he realized the enormity of his decision to allow Alec to deal with Rose. "You never mentioned that you had those sort of abilities Alec, you didn't explain what you were going to do to her. Who are you really?"

Alec clenched his eyes closed when he heard Pete's accusation, his head dropping for a moment as another wave of vertigo washed over him. He could feel the wild fluctuations of the rift tearing across his skin, the voices from another reality were still echoing faintly through his mind but he could tell that whatever was happening was fast spiralling out of control. His time was running out, Jack wasn't showing any signs of resurrecting and he was beginning to worry that he would lose this chance to return to the reality where he truly belonged.

"I've become a Time Lord now, Pete. I didn't posses these abilities before but whatever is happening in that alternate reality has unlocked the ability within me to become a full-fledged Time Lord. I've told you something of my past and what my progenitor, for lack of a better word, was and now I've been able to assume the full mantle of all the abilities available to his species."

Alec opened his eyes and looked back into Pete's bewildered eyes, wincing when he saw the faint hint of anger simmering in their depths. "Even if you had known the extent of my newfound abilities, which frankly I don't even know what they are yet and don't have the time to try to figure them out, would have you made a different decision? I can see time and chance, Pete. I very distinctly saw two possible futures for Rose. In one, she would never be happy and would continue to use every means at her disposal to rip a hole in reality that would allow her to return to the Doctor and in the other possible future, she had the chance of picking up the pieces of her shattered life and trying to rebuild here with you and Jackie." His hand shook as it clenched into a fist, the motion catching Pete's eye for a moment before Alec continued. "My actions today seem to have averted the one reality that would lead to death and destruction on a scale that you can't even begin to imagine. Hopefully with the loss of those memories, I have made the other possibility a certainty now."

Pete's jaw clenched and he choked back a sob as he looked back at the woman who he considered to be his daughter, the tears streaming in an unstoppable flow down his cheeks. "I didn't know what I was agreeing to, Alec. I didn't understand."

Alec struggled to his feet, his hands clenching for a moment as he was nearly forced to sit back down when the dizziness momentarily overwhelmed him. He breathed through the waves, before he reached up to clasp Pete's shoulder, the movement forcing the older man to look up into Alec's faintly shimmering, golden eyes.

Pete gasped through his tears when he saw that faint golden light still shining in Alec's eyes, the sight reminding him sharply that this strange man was unlike any being he had ever encountered. It also drove home the fact that Alec was now so much more, and that he had abilities that were frankly unbelievable. He felt a strange sense of finality in these moments with Alec, as though with everything changing he was soon going to be losing a man that he had considered a good friend.

"I'm sorry I didn't have time to explain what I was going to do, Pete. At the end of the day though, it doesn't change the fact of what had to be done to protect reality. You've been a steward of this reality for years, you've seen this world nearly destroyed by war with an alien species. You've had to make the difficult decisions before and you haven't hesitated when the time came. Would you truly have made an alternative decision even if you had known what that choice would ultimately lead to?"

Pete's shoulders dropped under Alec's question, his hand rising to rub tiredly at his eyes while he shook his head. "No, Alec. I don't suppose that I would've made a different decision. Still though, what do we tell her? How much are we going to have to help her rebuild?"

Alec sighed softly as he looked over to see that Rose was finally secured and that the medics were preparing to transport her to the medical wing. Thomas had already run an IV and was leaning over the stretcher with a small penlight in order to check her pupil response. Alec knew that Rose would get the best medical treatment this world had to offer, but that wouldn't even begin to touch the real trauma that he had inflicted on her mind.

"You need to treat her like any amnesia victim because that's what she essentially has become. She can never know about the Doctor, me or the Tardis though with her memories now removed there shouldn't be any danger."

Pete frowned when he heard Alec's words, his eyes snapping back to the stretcher before he whispered, "Will she remember me? I was dead for years in her world, and now suddenly I'm back?"

Alec grimaced when he saw the dilemma that Pete now found himself in, he vaguely remembered Rose mentioning that her father had died when she was still a baby, long before the Doctor had found her and he knew that her memories of her father were at best the faint impressions of an infant that were only reinforced with the many trips down memory lane that her mother would take on any given occasion. "I'm sorry Pete, but I don't have an easy answer to that question. You saw as well as I did what she was capable of committing today to get back to the Doctor even though she knows what the danger to all of reality her actions would most likely pose. You saw what she has become and that she would never be happy in this reality with any of those memories intact."

He shuddered when a particularly harsh fluctuation in the temporal energy at the other end of the lab sent a wave of fire racing through his still stabilizing systems, his eyes slid closed for a moment while he exhaled a soft golden mist.

Pete's eyes widened when he saw those golden particles drift on Alec's breath, his hand rising to his heart before he swallowed hard and forced himself to watch as Alec was obviously struggling with the after effects of the change that he had just undergone. Even though, he had never really thought about Alec's very alien origin over the years, he had seemed every bit the human and had even begun to show signs that he was aging as time had passed. Yet now, his friend was staring at him from a stranger's eyes with every tone and gesture feeling so hauntingly similar to the Alec that he had known. Pete found that he could barely reconcile the strange, powerful man standing beside him with the quiet man that had become something of a son to him over the past few years. "I'm thankful for the chance to have and raise my daughter again that I never would've had if she had never met the Doctor, but still I have to wonder if the price is worth it. Surely there were good things that she had accomplished during the years? Please tell me that it wasn't all just a pointless waste?"

Alec nodded softly, his hand reaching out to take Pete's in his own as he tried to bring some measure of comfort to his tormented friend. "There were indeed many wonderful things that she did over the years, Pete. It just sort of all went wrong when the Cybermen attacked her reality, the attack that initially sent her here. I wish I could understand how or why she changed after that incident, but I hope that this way you and Jackie can help her find the woman she was meant to be."

Pete nodded and gripped Alec's hand tightly for a moment longer, his eyes held by Alec's gaze before he whispered, "This is goodbye isn't it, Alec?"

Alec numbly nodded, his own eyes misting before Pete pulled him into a tight embrace. "Take care of yourself, I'll tell Jackie that you said goodbye. If you ever see this Doctor, tell him thank you for giving my daughter back to me."

"I will, Pete. Please make sure to tell Jackie that I'm sorry, but that I hope she eventually comes to appreciate having the daughter that she knew back."

Pete swallowed with some difficulty, before he forced himself to turn away from Alec and hurried after Rose's stretcher. He didn't even know how to explain to Jackie what had happened or how they were going to help Rose adapt to a new life with a seemingly new family, but he knew that she'd been given a second chance and that he would make sure he did everything in his power to help her make the most of it.

Alec watched Pete turn and hurry out of the lab, his hand rose to his mouth to choke back the sob that threatened to break free. He knew that he had left a terrible mess on Pete's hands, his actions had not made the man's life any easier but perhaps he had given him the chance to finally have the daughter that he had always hoped to have. He knew that he absolutely had to erase Rose's memories to avoid the future that he had glimpsed when she had looked up at him through tear streaked eyes, but there was no guarantee that he had set her feet on the path to the happy future that he had glimpsed in the other timeline.

"Rose, NO!"

Alec jumped when Jack sat bolt upright next to him, his eyes wide with terror as he flung his hands out in front of him in a futile gesture to deflect a bullet. The swirling aura that always seemed to dance around Jack was suddenly blazing from his outstretched hands, the breath of impossible life had been drowned out by Jack's terrified shout as he had resurrected from another painful death.

"It's okay, Jack, I've taken care of Rose, she won't be a problem anymore."

Jack turned towards the voice, the light Scottish brogue catching his attention before his eyes fell on the unfamiliar man sitting next to him. "Who the hell are you? How did you get in here? This is a restricted area."

Alec grimaced when he heard Jack's question, having momentarily forgotten that Jack had died before he could see the full effect of his regeneration. "It's me Jack, it's Alec. I'm afraid I don't have a lot of time to explain, suffice it to say I've finally managed to become a full-fledged Time Lord and it ended up changing me."

Jack swallowed convulsively at Alec's words, his hand rising to massage the still healing bullet hole in his forehead before he shook his head and tried to rise to his feet. "How did that happen? I thought you'd said that you would never be able to become one of these Time Lords?"

Alec reached out to grip Jack's hand as he struggled to rise, the movement reminding him quite forcefully that he was still suffering from the after effects of his regeneration and that if he didn't lay down in a healing trance soon then he wouldn't be able to control when he finally did collapse. He didn't want to have to deal with the regeneration sickness that he knew was looming before he managed to get through the portal and back in time to help the Doctor face down the Master.

"I honestly don't know, Jack, but something is happening in the universe that I came from and it has to do with the Doctor and the Master. Whatever the Master is doing is what has generated this energy wave and if he isn't stopped, then every universe on every plane of existence will be destroyed." Alec's mouth snapped shut on those last words, his eyes pleading with Jack to understand and accept his explanation without pressing for too many more details on what exactly this threat entailed.

If Rassilon managed to initiate the final sanction then there really was nothing that any of them could do, and they wouldn't even be aware of the destruction of the time vortex. This could all just be useless flailing and they would all cease to exist at any moment. Alec couldn't let himself be overcome with despair at the thought that nothing he did would help to save reality, he had to do everything in his power to try to help the Doctor do what he did best.

Jack grunted when he heard Alec's explanation, his gaze traveling from the different hand that was gripping his to the vortex that was still raging across the lab. "I feel like you're hiding something from me, Alec, but you did manage to save us before this energy wave hit so I guess I've got to continue trusting you." He held on to Alec's hand for a moment before he used the leverage to pull himself to his feet. He could feel Alec's hand shaking in his grasp, his strangely vivid blue eyes still seemed to have a golden glow to them if he found himself looking too closely.

He had no experience with these Time Lords that Alec had always spoken about, but then he was more open minded than most people on this planet because of his extensive training with the Time Agency. He knew that there were beings both in the past and the future that could shapeshift should the need ever arise, he just didn't recall Alec ever mentioning that Time Lords were also shapeshifters.

"We're not traditional shapeshifters, Jack. We can only change at great cost to ourselves and usually many only choose to do so when they've either lived a long time in one body or when that body is mortally wounded. The Doctor was on his tenth incarnation when I first came into existence and I ended up looking like that regeneration. Now, I've somehow taken on a completely new face and personality but I don't have the time to try to figure all that out."

Jack jerked his hand away from Alec's like it was scalded, his eyes widening before he took an involuntary step back. "How did you do that?"

Alec winced, in the giddy rush of having many of his old abilities back as well as many new ones, he had forgotten the first basic rule of telepathy and that was not to react verbally to what people around you were thinking. At least not if you didn't want to give yourself away. "Did I ever mention that Time Lords were also telepaths?" he asked sheepishly.

Jack narrowed his eyes before responding, "No, you failed to mention that little tidbit."

"Well, I didn't think it was important since you never should have run into a Time Lord in this universe. Even you are mildly telepathic and I know that it's not a particularly powerful ability, but humans evolved quite a bit over the next three thousand years as they began to travel amongst the stars."

Jack opened his mouth to refute Alec's claim, though if the man suddenly had telepathic abilities then there really was no use denying his assertion, but he instead cried out and had to reach to steady Alec when the man suddenly began to sway, Alec's hand rising to his temples as his eyes squeezed shut in an obvious show of pain. "Alec, what's wrong?"

Alec grabbed onto Jack's hand, his teeth clenching hard when he felt the universe begin to spin around him. The first waves of regeneration sickness were beginning to wash over him, the Doctor and Donna's voices continued to fade as events continued to race towards their climax.. He suddenly felt time slow for him, the strange, hypervigilant state that the Doctor had been able to achieve during times of crisis began to settle over his senses.

He looked back to Jack, his vision tunneling to pick out individual strands in the timelines that always danced around the immortal, the timelines that even now reminded Alec of the agony that was going to be this man's life for all eternity. He knew now that Jack would be forever alone in this universe and that he would only ever know short periods of happiness, but that he would be vital in the protection of earth for centuries to come and that he would be there to witness humanity's first steps into the stars.

He swallowed hard against the rise of sorrow at the knowledge of Jack's fate in this universe, his jaw clenching for a moment to push back the burn of tears before he muttered, "I've got to go back to my universe, Jack. I've got to help the Doctor in any way that I can against this threat."

Jack jerked away from Alec, his mind spinning as he tried to think of all the implications of Alec's words. He could sense Alec's implacable resolve, but he could also tell that there was something else to his statement. "Why can you return to that reality but Rose can't?"

Alec sighed and turned away from Jack, his steps still jerky as he tried to grow accustomed to the strange body that he now wore. He should've expected such a question from Jack, but it gave him hope that Jack didn't outright refuse his statement. "Because I'm not at home in any reality. I came into existence in the midst of a crisis, I'm the combination of both the Doctor and Donna but really I guess you could call me an impossible man. I'm not bound by the same restrictions as Rose, because truly I never had a home in that universe. Also, I didn't make a habit of ripping holes through reality despite being told explicitly never to do so again."

"I guess you've got a point there, Alec" Jack felt forced to admit. The conundrum of Rose Tyler's obsession had caused him many sleepless nights and he had to admit he was relieved that Alec had been able to deal with that particular situation.

Alec made his way to the dimension canon controls, his fingers flowing over them faster than Jack had ever seen anyone work a control station and within seconds the impenetrable algorithms that Jack had encrypted the controls with were overridden.

Jack's jaw dropped when he saw Alec's blatant skill though he tried not to let show how impressed he was, his natural skills with the computers in this reality had obviously been extraordinarily enhanced with whatever special mojo this Time Lord change had wrought. "Okay, I'm not going to waste time asking how you could do that so quickly. You obviously don't need my help to get back to the Doctor's reality, so what are you really asking me to do?"

Jack watched Alec closely, the man was obviously unused to the face that he was wearing and his emotions and reactions were fascinating to observe as they chased themselves across his visage. He was pretty sure that Alec would rediscover his poker face, but for the time being, he was a painfully open book as he winced slightly at Jack's direct question.

Alec bit his lip, his gaze darting over his shoulder to the metal cylinder that stood on the other end of the lab before he decided to respond. "The Tardis can't make the trip on her own, she's too young and the impact of the energy wave has damaged her. I can't leave her here either though or she will quickly wither and die. Her bond with me is the reason why she was able to cross the boundary into sentience and grow into the being that she now has become. She is a sentient being, Jack and more than that she is a part of me. Please help me bring her back with me."

Alec paused when he felt the concern from the Tardis flash through his mind, the strange terror that she had never felt before suddenly screaming through her as she realized that she might have to be forcibly separated from her pilot. A single agonized word echoed through Alec's mind at that realization.

 _No!_

Alec struggled to maintain his composure when faced with the very real fear of the infant Tardis. Her consciousness was straining to force itself into his mind so that she could show him how to make the repairs himself so that they wouldn't have to depend on anyone who might be determined to separate them. He strove to keep some semblance of control over his own thoughts, his gaze locked with Jack's while he waited for the man's decision. A decision that he hoped he wouldn't be forced to ignore.

Jack watched the strange dance of emotions across Alec's unfamiliar face, the slight lines at the corners of his eyes tightening ever so briefly when he seemed to be having an obvious argument with himself. Jack turned to glance back at the strange ship that had been so instrumental in saving the reality that he called home and he couldn't help but think about all the knowledge that could be gleaned from the strange craft.

He contemplated for just a moment refusing Alec's request, but he knew that he could never be so cruel, not when he knew how connected the two of them truly were. He realized that it was time to say goodbye to his strange friend, and with a lump in his throat he replied, "Alec, it would be my honor."

Jack clapped Alec on the shoulder, his eyes shining with a sad smile when he let himself remember the strange road that they had traveled together. He would never forget Alec, and he would make sure that he did what he could to make a difference in this reality. Alec had always held himself to a higher ideal, he had always made every decision with the utmost care for what was the right thing to do. Jack had learned alot from Alec, and Alec had helped Jack see that it was sometimes a worthwhile endeavor to fly straight. He hoped that he had had even half of an impact on the man.

"Thank you, Jack. Words are not enough to express the depth of my gratitude, but thank you."

Alec reached up to hold Jack's wrist for a moment more before the two men turned and set to work returning Alec back to the reality from which he should never have been banished.


	7. Chapter 7

It's hard to believe that it has been 10 months since I last updated this story. So much has happened in the intervening months that I can't even begin to describe it. RT has not been kind to me in this last year but I feel that these voices are finally speaking to me again after a long and much enforced silence. Medical issues and other such things have stolen my voice but it broke with the help of reading the fanfic of my fave authors. I can only apologize for this delay, but I hope that it is over. I can't promise anything as these characters have proven they are my Master. At least with the end of this chapter I feel I can tell stories I have wanted to for a long time. As long as my health holds out, I will continue to tell these chraacters stories.

Thank you BMG and DM12 for always having faith in my storytelling abilities even when I didn't believe in myself. I guess I finally found myself again!

* * *

Alec and Jack worked side by side almost in perfect sync. Their hands were flying over different controls with a speed that was hard for the other technicians to follow even as orders were shouted and they were sent running to fine tune different settings on the Dimension Cannon.

"You're still going to need to use a dimension jumper, Alec. I don't think that your ship has the energy to initiate the jump and you don't know what you're going to find on the other side."

Alec looked up at Jack's words, his gaze travelling back to the ship and listening intently to her blaze of thought before he nodded slowly. "I think you're right, Jack. She's badly damaged as it is and I don't know what the crossing will do to her, or what condition she's going to be in when we finally do make it across." He chewed thoughtfully on his lip as the weakness that had been growing from his impending collapse into regeneration sickness had been shunted to the side by the onset of his hypervigilant state. However, he knew that he only had a very short window in this state before he crashed out of it. "I'm going to have to modify one of the jumpers to be able to be triggered on a delay, because I can't carry it inside the Tardis with me. Her temporal field would effectively shield and cancel out any effect otherwise."

Alec turned to hurry across the lab, his steps stumbling briefly before he caught himself and was able to reach the secured locker where the jumpers had been stored. He keyed in the security code and took all of the dimension jumpers out before he returned to Jack's side and reached for some tools that had been laying at the side of one of the work stations.

Jack glanced at the readings on a secondary display, his brows knitting in a frown of concentration before he turned back to Alec. "I think we're running out of time; whatever it is we're going to do, it had better be soon."

Alec nodded to one of the technicians who pointed to the modifications that he had just completed before he looked back to Jack. The voices in the back of his mind were almost completely silent now, though he thought that he could still hear Donna faintly weeping and he knew better than Jack that he was nearly out of time.

"I know, Jack. The Rift is stabilizing and whatever is happening is nearly over, I don't know what condition the primary universe is in, but if I can find the Doctor then maybe I can help him fix whatever happened."

Alec didn't even want to think about what would happen if he arrived to find the Doctor and Donna dead with the Master and Rassilon reigning in absolute terror, though truthfully he wouldn't have much time to contemplate the end of all existence as the Final Sanction was initiated.

He popped open the dimension jumper, his fingers deftly parting the complex circuitry and carefully rewiring it so that he could fire it on a remote delay before he looked back up into Jack's discerning gaze.

"I need you to destroy the Dimension Cannon and all the jumpers once I'm through the Rift, Jack. You can't run the risk of anyone being able to threaten the multiverse again."

Jack gasped softly when he heard Alec's ultimatum, his fingers tapping out a few final commands before he turned to face the young Time Lord. "Is that really such a good idea, Alec? What if we ever need to reach out to you again? How will we be able to find you?"

Alec sighed as he snapped the casing of the device closed, his fingers caressing its cool surface before he whispered, "You'll never be able to find me again, Jack. I wasn't joking when I said that this was really good-bye. This reality is going to become your charge now and I have every faith that you'll be able to help humanity take its first steps into the stars."

Jack glowered at Alec's words, feeling angry once again at the fate that was now unfairly to be his. "You're stranding me here for centuries, Alec. I know that it will be at least another hundred to one hundred and fifty years before there is any reliable spaceflight to anywhere in this solar system, and with the Cybermen Wars, I worry what those first contacts with other species with be like. Humanity is different than the past that I remember now, I'm not too sure what effect those wars had on the timelines."

Alec pushed himself to his feet, recognizing quickly the danger in staying still for too long as his body was struggling to crash out of his hypervigilant state, he leaned against the console and with the jumper in one hand he reached up to clap Jack on the shoulder with his free hand. "This is why I know you'll be brilliant, Jack. They will need someone to guide them through those tense and frightening first contacts. Someone who will be the calm voice of reason when humanity has only known the worst in alien species before now." His grip tightened momentarily before he continued, "You need to find a purpose, Jack or you really will go insane. It's the only way that my universe's Jack was able to survive for as long as he has in one relative piece. He fell to pieces for many decades before he finally concluded that he needed a focus for his long existence or else he would've been doomed for all eternity to wander aimless, mad and alone."

Jack's jaw clenched when he heard Alec's words, the stark prophecy of the existence that awaited him, if he let himself drift as he was so tempted to do, jerked him back from the edge of that pit that he had been circling for years. "I don't really have a choice, do I?" he whispered brokenly.

"I'm afraid you don't, Jack."

Jack nodded before he grabbed Alec up in a strong hug, his eyes clenching shut against the burn of tears before he hastily stepped back. "You take care of yourself, Alec. And tell that Doctor if you see him again, thank you for lending you to us for the time that we had you. I'll do my best to make sure that humanity lives up to the promise that you see in it."

Alec smiled at Jack's words, already seeing the shift in his timelines as some of the despair seemed to have been lifted from the immortal's mind and he felt himself energized with a purpose for the first time since his strange rebirth. "I know you will, Jack. Thank you again for everything, and thank you for giving me the strength to do what also needed to be done."

He turned away from the control console and looked back to the Tardis, feeling her mind already preparing for the brutal journey through the Void and he knew that the worst was yet to come. She was bleeding energy from a hundred different parts as her matrix had been battered by the arrival of the energy wave, but he could tell that she was ready to carry him through the void and back to the primary universe. She tried to convey her gratitude to him for doing what he could to take her along, though she knew that it would be much easier if he were to just use the dimension jumper himself, but the thought of being ripped apart from him had set her young mind into a very unfamiliar state of panic.

Jack walked with Alec back to his ship, his eyes rising to the Rift at the end of the lab that was beginning to pulse and fade in and out of existence and he knew that now was the moment that he'd been dreading. "It's time for you to leave, Alec. I'll make sure to destroy the dimension cannon and any record of its schematics so that it can never be used to threaten the multiverse again."

Alec paused with one hand resting against the outside of the Tardis, his fingers caressing the warm metal surface before he fastened the device to the outside, smiling softly when he felt the magnetic click as the ship magnetized the portion of its hull to hold it steady in place. "That's all that I can hope for, Jack."

They both stood in a moment of awkward silence before he turned back to look into the dim interior of his ship. "I'll set the countdown for ninety seconds, Jack. You'll be able to monitor the countdown from your console, just make sure to synchronize the firing of the main cannon with the activation of the jumper and that should be enough to push her into the void. The rest will then be up to us."

Jack nodded at Alec's instructions, his eyes falling to watch Alec's fingers program the countdown into the device before he whispered, "Good-bye, Alec. Thanks for everything."

Alec looked back one more time at Jack before he nodded, and gripped his shoulder one final time. "Good-bye, Jack," He then turned and slipped into his strange ship, the door sealing closed around him for the final time.

Jack jumped when he saw the timer begin its countdown on the display, his conflicted emotions about this final good-bye shunted to the side as he rushed back to the control console and quickly synced the two countdowns. He watched the readings on the Rift begin to shift wildly out of control, the energy was starting to dissipate and it seemed that whatever crisis had happened, was finally beginning to pass.

Each second seemed to tick by like a mini eternity as the energy continued to fade from the monitors in front of him, the vortex at the end of the hall was shrinking and the blinding light was slowly fading away.

Fifteen seconds to go and Jack knew that it would only be moments before the vortex also closed and he found himself leaning forward as that countdown finally hit zero and the dimension cannon blazed to life.

He forced himself to watch as the ship seemed to shiver in place for a moment as the dimension jumper fired, before it looked to be wrenched backwards through the vortex that winked out of existence behind it.

Jack let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding as he had been watching Alec's countdown race against the collapsing of the Rift, his eyes finally drifting closed so that he whispered into the now silent lab, "Good-bye, Alec."

Jack cast one final glance at the wall at the end of the lab where his friend had vanished, his thoughts flying through that terrifying void for one final moment when he wished him as safe a journey as possible, before he then turned his attention to the Dimension Cannon and began the painstaking work of shutting it down for the final time.

His reality was now forever sealed away from the rest of the multiverse, just as Alec had wanted it to be.

* * *

Alec ducked into the Tardis with a final look back over his shoulder at Jack as he ran up to the control console, his time sense counting down the seconds to activation while he settled in at the controls of the Tardis and braced himself for the bumpy ride to come.

He could see where the damage from the impact of the energy wave had fried out some of the infant Tardis systems, and also where other areas of damage were bleeding energy in a concerning way. He worried that even with the boost from the Dimension Cannon, the Tardis wouldn't survive this crossing.

"Well, if we go, then at least we're going to go together, Girl!"

He felt the tired acknowledgement from the battered ship, her consciousness had finally settled when she had realized that he had no intention of leaving her behind in this reality to die a slow, wasting death because she had been forcibly separated from him. She tried to convey all that she felt to her pilot, but she was still too young to do any more than shower him with warmth and half formed images that cause him to smile in response.

"I know, Girl. I never would've left you behind, you're a part of me just as I'm a part of you and we're in this wild ride together."

His hands were flying over the controls with a manic air as he felt the timer outside counting inexorably down to zero. The Rift was fluctuating wildly now and was definitely smaller than it had been even a few minutes earlier, and he realized that it was fast approaching the point of collapse. Was ninety seconds too long? Had he waiting too long in a last attempt to hold on to his barest sentimentality for a few precious moments more before he had finally worked up the courage to set the countdown in motion?

What a fool he would look if the countdown hit zero and nothing happened because he had mistimed the closure of the Rift and he would have to live a shadowy life in Pete's world, forever haunted by the results of his actions with Rose and the rest of the world.

The Tardis tried to reassure him as best she could, but she was too focused on the impending trip and trying to follow the timelines back to the universe from which she and her pilot had come. The energy wave was dissipating, but its disastrous passage through the Void was easy to track and she felt that once they were actually in the Void then she would be able to follow it back to its point of origin.

Alec looked up as the counter struck zero, his eyes fixed on the monitors when he saw the Dimension Cannon blaze to life outside and the corresponding tug against the outer hull of the Tardis before she was violently wrenched back through the collapsing vortex.

He cried out as he flew against the railing that surrounded the control console, his hands madly scrabbling for purchase around the slick metal before he catapulted over it to the ground below.

He could feel that frantic cries from the Tardis as she tried to navigate the strange eddies in which she found herself, the energy that had bled from the destroyed realities had filled the Void with currents that he hadn't seen the last time he had crossed over.

He clawed his way back to the control console, trying desperately to regain his balance as the ship was tossed through the Void like a piece of flotsam in a hurricane. He managed to regain his feet and looked down at the readings with dismay as he worried that this crossing would bring about the end that he had worried awaited him and his young Tardis.

He hadn't had the time to effect even the most basic repairs before he had basically had her hurled into the Void, trusting his own instincts and the force from the Dimension Cannon would be enough to see them through the crossing. He hadn't realized the damage that had been done to the overall coherent structure of the Void with the passage of that energy wave and as the ship continued to travel deeper into the space, he caught faint glimpses of creatures that came sailing close to the flailing ship.

"I need you to try to narrow down the field, Girl, there's only Time Lord energy in one reality that we know of. I need you to use that as a beacon to pull us through, because I don't know how much longer we can survive here or even if whatever is out there will let us survive."

The Doctor had heard many tales of the monsters that lived in the Void, terrible creatures that would devour any being foolish enough to attempt the crossing and Alec, or rather the Doctor, had always laughed thinking that the stories were nothing more than cautionary tales to frighten unsuspecting Time Lords away from the folly of ever attempting to breach the barriers between universes.

The Tardis was drawing on his impressions more and more as her consciousness was beginning to fade, her own perceptions were still so new that she was floundering in the dangerous currents of time that were eddying around her. She felt fear as those strange creatures swam alongside her hull; their strange, haunting cry echoing to her as she struggled to focus on the origins of her own reality.

Alec paused when he heard the strange singing echoing through the hull of the ship, his own fatigue was beating at him like with an unrelenting force as he allowed the Tardis to take as much of his energy that she needed in order to find the tiny thread that would guide the both of them home. He could barely make out the creatures on the readings of the Tardis, and he cried out when he felt them bump the ship gently away from one of the stronger eddies before turning her back into her original course.

"They're guiding us through, Girl! They're not here to destroy us, they're here to help us! We don't belong in their world and they know it! Follow them!"

He held tightly to the railing, grunting against the vertigo that was beginning to lurk at the edge of his vision before he felt the triumph in the Tardis' failing thoughts. She had finally found the thread, and with the help of the creatures, she put on a final burst of speed and pulled away just as the walls of reality snapped closed around her and spit her out into the heart of the Medusa Cascade.

Alec sagged against the console as his knees finally gave out, his energy reserves dangerously depleted as his body crashed out of its hypervigilant state. He reached out to pat the console lovingly, his heart breaking as he felt the stutter in the ship's thoughts before he whispered, "We're almost there, Girl, I just need you to do one more thing and then we can both rest." He was going to be completely useless to the Doctor and Donna, but the fact that he was even still breathing and floating quietly in the Medusa Cascade led him to believe that the Doctor had somehow, against all odds, managed to defeat the Master and Rassilon.

"There are only two Time Lords in the universe and they're both likely to be in the same spot, so I need you to scan the timelines for Time Lord energy signatures and use that to take us home."

He felt the exhaustion and confusion in the Tardis' mind as she tried to implement the scans that he had requested, but she was too damaged from her own crossing of the Void that she couldn't quite get her consciousness to grasp the proper threads in the chaos that surrounded her.

Alec smiled softly and hauled himself back to his feet, his legs were wobbly and were refusing to hold him steady so he leaned against the console as he quickly began to program the controls for the proper scan. He was asking too much of her too soon and he knew that if they both didn't set down quickly, then neither of them would survive for much longer.

There was a beeping from the console and Alec laughed in delight when the ship already began to dematerialize to follow the thread that was burning so brightly from across the universe. The ship shuddered when she raced through the Vortex, her systems were cascading through failure after failure and she knew that her pilot was fast approaching collapse as well and wouldn't be able to help her much longer.

She tore through the Vortex, desperately holding to that thread of energy that was leading both her and her pilot home. She lost all control of her landing as the last of her systems failed and so she was unable to protect her pilot from the violent crash landing as she materialized on a strange planet that lay dying beneath a blazing sun.

Alec went flying over the railing when the Tardis crash landed on whatever planet she had followed the Doctor's energy signature to, his body twisting violently through the air before he landed on his back while his lower body twisted painfully in a different direction from his torso. He screamed as he felt the snap of one of his legs breaking in the landing, his back arching against the pain that quickly brought all his exhaustion crashing down around him and sent him tumbling through the darkness into a blissful silence.

The Tardis reached out into the world around her with the last of her strength, She knew that her pilot was in real danger and that there was nothing she could do to help him even though she had followed that thread of energy to this strange world that even now seemed to be burning with time's merciless energy.

She connected with the mind that had pulled them both here, her delight at finding the being that had been their beacon turned to dismay when she felt the confusion and fear in that thought before the being resolutely turned towards the damaged ship.

She let the portal appear in her side in the hope that the being would be able to find its way inside before she allowed herself to drift away and regain what little strength she could.

* * *

Alec had no idea how long he had been unconscious, He blinked tired eyes up at the faintly glowing coral over his head, the lights dimming fitfully as the Tardis seemed to be bleeding energy even more quickly than he had feared.

He couldn't move as he felt pain shoot through his leg, the sharp stab of agony reminding him of the terrible snap he had felt before he had mercifully lost consciousness. He knew that he would be able to heal the injury pretty quickly once he allowed himself to fall into a healing trance and that it was in that state that he could best handle the regeneration sickness that was even now rolling over him in endless waves.

His impossible regeneration was finally exacting its toll on his body, and he found that he could no longer fight the pull down into oblivion, but it was the faint sound of footsteps that snapped him back to a bleary consciousness while he tried to look around for the source of that noise.

"Who's there?"

There was no answer but a startled inhalation of breath before the footsteps hurried closer to his side. He blinked away the hazy afterimages that continued to chase themselves across his vision, a sure sign that he had also suffered a pretty significant concussion as well as other injuries that he couldn't even begin to catalogue in his distressed state. He tried to turn his head but cried out when he felt the bite of a piece of metal lodged firmly against his cheek that prevented him from turning to see who had entered the Tardis.

"I can hear you in here, you may as well speak up now." Alec tried to inject as much authority into his voice as he could whilst lying pinned to the floor by several pieces of equipment and debris but his words had the effect of causing a shadow to lean across him and a face to swim into his view.

He felt his breath catch in his throat as he saw a woman lean into his field of vision, her eyes swam into focus, framed by the most gorgeous shock of brunette hair that he found his injured mind swimming from detail to detail before he fell into their dark depths. He belatedly noticed the timelines swimming off her form and dancing into the air around her. His eyes widened when he saw that smile, and he found himself whispering in wonder, "You can't be a Time Lord, who are you?"

The strange woman smiled and reached up to stroke his cheek in a comforting gesture, before she turned to look down at his body where it lay pinned beneath the Tardis' equipment. "My name is Jenny, and I heard your cry for help. Just rest while I try to get you out from under this mess, we can deal with the questions later."

Alec frowned as her name tickled something in the back of his mind, but he quickly lost the train of his thought when she shifted the console fragment that was laying on his leg. He screamed at the pain that ripped through him before he mercifully blacked out.


End file.
